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A SEA-DOG OF DEVON 




SIR JOHN HAWKINS. 

(From an Oiiginnl Oil Painting in the possession of Miss Ma)y W. S. Hawkins, 
at Hayford Hall, Buckfastlcigh. Devon.) 



A SEA-DOG OF 
DEVON . . . 

A Life of Sir John Hawkins 



> i BY 



R. A. J. WALLING 



With Introduction by Lord Brassey and 
John Leyland 



NEW YORK 

THE JOHN LANE COMPANY 

MCMVII 



^H 



x%, 



TO 

F. V. W. 



yf/Cyf/ 



ol 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction ........ ix 

CHAPTER I. 
The Age ........ i 



CHAPTER II. 
The Family of Hawkins ..... 17 

CHAPTER III. 
The Youth of John Hawkins .... 29 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Trade in Negro Slaves ..... 38 

CHAPTER V. 
The Second Voyage to the West Indies . . 54 

CHAPTER VI. 
On the Spanish Main ...... 69 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Return to England ..... 83 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Affair of San Juan ..... 99 

* 



vi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. PAGE 

The Affair of San Juan {continued) . . . iii 

CHAPTER X. 

The Affair of San Juan {concluded) . . . 127 

CHAPTER XI. 
Aftermath ........ 143 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Feria Plot . . . . . . -153 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Favour of the Queen . .... 170 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Elizabeth's Board of Admiralty . . . ,181 

CHAPTER XV. 
An Admiralty Memorandum ..... 199 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Armada ........ 210 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The Fight with the S.-inta Anna .... 224 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Figures ......... 236 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The Dainty ........ 249 



CONTENTS. vii 

CHAPTER XX. PAGE 

The Bitter End ....... 261 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Characteristics ....... 277 

Note A. — The Family of Hawkins . . . 284 

Note B. — Authorities ...... 285 

Note C. — Hawkins and the Admiralty . . 286 

Index . ........ 287 



INTRODUCTION. 

The author of this book has rightly placed John Haw- 
kins among the first of those to whose undaunted spirit 
our sea supremacy is due. With Drake and RcJeigh, 
the Gilberts and John Davis, Hawkins was among the 
greatest and most resolute of those famous men of 
Devon who made the earliest expeditions to the un- 
known shores of the New World. Less bold and generous 
in temperament, perhaps, than Drake, less gifted as a 
statesman than Raleigh, without the inspiration of 
Humphrey Gilbert, Raleigh's half-brother, but with the 
attractive qualities of John Davis — Hawkins deserved 
well of his country. He was a man of courage and 
resource. He possessed in a high degree administrative 
ability. He was a leader in an age of splendid achieve- 
ments. He deserves to be better known to his country- 
men in these days. 

In introducing the present vigorous narrative to the 
reader, we shall endeavour briefly to describe the cir- 
cumstances and the prevailing views of the age in which 
Hawkins lived. It is necessary to take account of en- 
vironments in estimating character and conduct. The 



X INTRODUCTION. 

author undertakes to vindicate his hero from the charge 
of having inaugurated our British slave trade. Those 
who have made this reproach against Hawkins confuse 
the ideals of the nineteenth or twentieth century with 
those of the sixteenth. The great captain acted in con- 
formity with the spirit of his age. The Portuguese and 
Spaniards had engaged without scruple in the slave 
trade. Prince Henry of Portugal, the so-called navi- 
gator, and King John II.. combined zeal for the saving 
of the souls of negroes with a recognition of the possi- 
bility of profiting by the labour of their bodies. 

We are brought to another point which those 
who read the life of those valiant English seamen 
should bear in mind. Our great navigators — bold, en- 
terprising, and resolute as they were — came late into the 
field. Both the Portuguese and the Spaniards were 
before us. The courageous Portuguese captains who 
gradually pushed along the coasts of Africa, until 
Bartholomew Diaz doubled the Cape of Good Hope 
and Vasco da Gama reached India by sea, were 
the pioneers of the expeditions of our East India 
merchants. The voyages of Columbus, the exploration 
of Nicuesa and Ojeda, and the supreme triumph of 
Vasco Nuiiez de Balboa, " the man who knew not when 
he was beaten," the first of white men to look upon the 
Pacific, revealed an El Dorado from which gold poured 
into the coffers of Spain. Their success stirred up the 
spirit of enterprise. Bold hearts in every maritime 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

country were eager to share the spoil. The Spaniards 
were not wilHng that others should have part in the 
advantages of trade with the newly discovered lands. 
Their exclusive policy led inevitably to smuggling. The 
measures of repression which they adopted provoked 
sanguinary reprisals. Hawkins and Drake were over- 
whelmed in the treacherous affair at San Juan de Ulloa, 
and barely escaped with their lives. They resolved to 
take vengeance, the one by subtlety, and the other by 
the capture of Nombre de Dios, the sacking of Vera 
Cruz, and the seizing of the wealth of the silver-laden 
mules of Spain. 

Peace could be no longer maintained. There fol- 
lowed the fierce struggle of 1588, in which Enghshmen 
were proved to be the finest seamen in Europe. The 
Spaniards, though they had done so much to open up 
the New World, as seamen were not the equals of 
Englishmen. They were largely dependent on the skill 
of the navigators of Genoa and other parts of Italy. 
It is interesting to note that it was largely through the 
translation, in 1555, by Richard Eden, of the " Decades " 
of Peter Martyr, descriptive of Spanish and Portuguese 
expeditions, and in part through his rendering from the 
Spanish in the following year of Martin Cortes's " Arte 
de Navigar," published at Seville, that the voyages of 
our seamen were made more easy, and the first know- 
ledge was gained of the wealth which might be acquired 
in the New World. 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

To sum up. John Hawkins is one of an illustrious 
band of navigators, English and foreign, to whom the 
opening up of trade with America is due. His pro- 
fessional attainments were high. He was master in 
seamanship, and in the art of the shipbuilder. His 
services were brilliant. He took a leading part in the 
fierce struggle with the Spaniards. In the interests of 
religion, and from a selfish desire to secure the monopoly 
in a valuable trade, they had sought to enclose the New 
World and bar the way to the Indies. English seamen 
and merchants were resolved that the barriers should be 
broken down. 

In the volume here presented the fine career of John 

Hawkins is described in a deeply interesting narrative. 

The biography of such a man is full of instruction, and 

necessarily embraces a general survey of the great age 

in which he lived. 

BRASSEY 

JOHN LEYLAND. 



A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE AGE. 

A Battle Incident — Drake's Overshadowing Fame — The Reformation 
in its Effect upon England as a Sea Power — ^The Beginnings 
of Naval Organisation in England — Early Assertions of Her 
Overlordship of the Seas — Spirit of the Elizabethan Age — The 
Privateers — Story of the Genoese Ducats. 

On a September day of the year 1568, amid the reek 
of powder smoke, the roar of culverins, and the cries of 
wounded men between the decks of the ship Jesus of 
Lubek, a Sea Dog of Devon was athirst. He made a 
gallant figure in gay attire, for he had just risen from 
his courtly entertaining of a grandee of Spain. Cheer- 
ing on of gunners against great odds, breathing of ven- 
geance against a ghastly treachery, inhaling the smother 
of war in the tropical air of Mexico — this was thirsty 
work. 

" He called to Samuel his page for a cup of beer," 
says the quaint Chronicler, "who brought it to him in a 
silver cup. And he, drinking to all the men, willed the 



2 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

gunners to stand by their ordnance lustily, like men. 
He had no sooner set the cup out of his hand but a 
demi-culverin struck away the cup and a cooper's plane 
that stood by the mainmast, and ran out on the other 
side of the ship ; which nothing dismayed our general, 
for he ceased not to encourage us. . . ." 

If it be true that, in the moment when Death 
breathes upon the face of a man as he passes by, the 
man has vision of his life as in the flash of magic crystal, 
never doubt that the wind of the culverin shot cleared 
for an instant the red mist of battle and disclosed to 
John Hawkins the garden of a gabled house in Ply- 
mouth. There he saw two boys at play, their game 
disturbed by the coming of mariners fresh from far seas, 
their game forgotten as they hung upon the converse of 
those sailors with their father of the perils and rewards 
of daring men who furrowed uncharted seas in the 
golden west. There he saw himself, one of those wide- 
eyed boys, flush and thrill as the microcosm of his life 
was suddenly revealed — glittering with shining adven- 
ture, red with the hue of war, dark with the shades of 
intrigue, following the star of high emprise. The boy 
who had stood in the garden at Plymouth was on the 
deck of his flagship in San Juan de Ulloa, the thunder 
of disastrous battle was around him, the powder smoke 
thickened again. 

" He ceased not to encourage us, saying, ' Fear 
nothing, for God, who hath preserved me from this shot, 



THE AGE. 3 

will also deliver us from these traitors and vil- 
lains.' " 

" Fear nothing " is the keynote of Hawkins's career. 
" God . . . will deHver us ! " comprehends his 
simple philosophy. This prototype of the Sea Dogs has 
been unaccountably overshadowed in the general litera- 
ture of the Spanish raids and the Armada time by Drake. 
The tremendously romantic figure of Sir Francis has 
obsessed the public imagination, almost to the exclusion 
of equally important figures among his contemporaries. 
There is something almost uncanny about the fascina- 
tion that Drake exercised over the men of his time, and 
the influence of the Drake legends has persisted to our 
own day. " The Captain " he was called by the people 
of Plymouth ; the Spaniards believed him to be assisted 
by the infernal powers in his prodigious exploits against 
them. His story has become encrusted with supernatural 
growths: he threw chips of wood into the sea, and they 
sprang up stately ships of war armed and equipped at 
all points ; he magically brought water from Dartmoor 
to Plymouth in a time of drought by uttering an in- 
cantation, whereupon the stream followed his horse's 
hoofs from the uplands to the town. There is the legend 
of Drake's Drum, with which all readers of Mr. Corbett 
and Mr. Newbolt are familiar. I have no purpose to de- 
preciate Drake, the Admirable Crichton of the Sixteenth 
Century seamen. He was a great leader and a great 
commander, and his influence upon the naval history of 



4 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

his time, and his place in the history of the world, are 
in no manner of question. Yet it is impossible to resist 
the conclusion that the almost exclusive attention given 
to him in the modern revival of interest in the Tudor 
Navy has pushed into the background many other men 
of large pattern, and greatest among them John 
Hawkins. 

John Hawkins was much more than mariner ; but 
he was mariner first and other things after. This not 
only in point of time ; his other notable qualities and 
acquirements arose out of his quality and acquirement 
as mariner. If he became soldier, it was because mari- 
time adventure imposed the necessity upon him. If he 
became diplomatist, it was to complete work begun at 
sea. If he became statesman, it was to administer the 
naval affairs of England. Wherever he was, in whatever 
complicated course he found himself at any time in his 
career, his thoughts were at sea, he dreamed of blue 
water, and longed to exchange the cloak of the courtier 
for the uniform of the captain, or the pedestal of high 
office for his own quarter-deck. 

The life of John Hawkins is written in a hundred 
books : he is in the background of every naval history 
of the sixteenth century ; but he has never yet had a 
biographer. If this is not actually by way of being a 
reproach to his country, it is at least something strange 
that so striking a figure in the English school of action 
should have lacked a literary •. ortrait. Within the 



THE AGE. 5 

limits assigned to this volume a complete biography is 
impossible ; if, however, there should arise from these 
pages a suggestion towards a detailed " Life," they will 
have served a good purpose. 

It has been said that modem English character 
was moulded in the Reformation. It is a com- 
prehensive, but a true saying. To the national 
movement of the sixteenth century we owe not 
a little of our modern greatness, our naval position, 
our world-empire. Only one facet of this thought 
need be examined here. The Reformation was the 
beginning of England's " glorious isolation," and the 
inspiration of the great sea-conflict with the Catholic 
Power. The wax of the systems lasted till 1688, and 
in the sense that the Reformation was not complete till 
WilHam anH Mary signed the Declaration of Rights, the 
national character and destinies did not emerge from 
the crucible till another century had passed. But the six- 
teenth century struggle with Spain determined a great 
deal when it determined the naval supremacy of 
England ; it cultivated the maritime genius of the 
Islanders, and laid the foundations of our colonial and 
imperial system in West and East. The model of 
English seamanship was cast ; to the Spanish wars we 
look for the earliest precedents of modern naval tradi- 
tions. How great a part the Hawkinses played in the 
making of the Navy, the establishment of seamanlike 
traditions, and the extension of the British Power in 



6 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

distant latitudes it will be the essay of these pages to 
demonstrate. 

We must go back to the reign of Henry VIII. to 
find the genesis of the Hawkins family's connection 
with the Navy ; and, as it was Henry VIII. who began 
the work of naval organisation in the modern sense, 
they may be said to have had their part in the creation 
of the British Navy as a fighting machine. Dockyards 
were first provided in this reign at Deptford — scene of 
much of Sir John's work later on — ^Woolwich, and Ports- 
mouth ; commissioners were first appointed to look after 
the financial affairs of the maritime forces ; and the 
status and pay of Admirals, Vice-Admirals, and inferior 
officers were settled. The naval spirit came into being. 
England assumed the sovereignty of the Northern seas, 
and the nation began to feel that its mission in the world 
was greater than to populate and administer these small 
islands. The ambition of maritime discovery was 
lively ; the need for an efficient naval force, not merely 
to prevent invasion of the homeland, but also to afford 
protection to the ever-widening interests of British com- 
merce, began to be felt ; the modern naval policy was 
born. 

Though under Edward and Mary the tendency was 
rather to reduce than to increase Henry's naval force 
of 12,000 tons and 8,000 men, even in the reign of the 
Catholic Queen the maritime prestige of England was 
jealously upheld. We come across a curious incident 



THE AGE. 7 

of naval etiquette during the voyage of Philip to this 
country to espouse the Queen. The EngHsh Lord High 
Admiral compelled Philip to strike the flag he was 
flying at his maintopmast-head in homage to the flag 
of England. How nauseating such a performance must 
have been to the proud stomach of Philip we may 
imagine ; the Spanish Admiral did not accede to the 
demand until a shot had been fired into him. Then he 
saw the force of the argument. Even when the Admiral 
had struck, English amour propre was not satisfied. 
The whole of the Spanish fleet of i6o vessels must 
strike flags and lower topsails ; and this was done be- 
fore the British ships received order to salute. We 
have in this a precedent for action taken in later years 
by Sir John Hawkins himself. The story is quaintly 
told by Sir Richard, his son. The date is 1567, and 
the place Plymouth Harbour : — 

"There came a fleete of Spaniards of aboue fiftie sayle of 
shippes, bound for Flaunders, to fetch the queen donna Anna 
de Austria, last wife to Philip the second of Spaine, which 
entred betwixt the iland and the maine, without vayling their 
top-sayles, or taking in of their flags : which my father Sir 
John Hawkins, (admirall of a fleete of her majesties shippes, 
then ryding in Cattwater), perceiving, commanded his gunner 
to shoote at the flag of the admirall, that they might thereby 
see their error : which, notwithstanding, they persevered arro- 
gantly to keepe displayed ; whereupon the gunner at the next 
shott, lact the admirall through and through, whereby the 
Spaniards finding that the matter beganne to grow to earnest 
took in their flags and top-sayles, and so ranne to an anchor. 

"The general! presently sent his boat, with a principal! 



8 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

personage to expostulate the cause and reason of that pro- 
ceeding ; but my father would not permit him to come into 
his ship, nor to heare his message ; but by another Gentleman 
commanded him to returne, and to tell his general, that in as 
much as in the queenes port and chamber, he had neglected 
to do the acknowledgment and reverence which all owe unto 
her majestie (especially her ships being present), and comming 
with so great a navie, he could not but give suspetion by 
such proceeding of malicious intention, and therefore re- 
quired him, that within twelve hours he should depart the 
port, upon paine to be held as a common enemy, and to pro- 
ceed against him with force." 

This dispute was in the end adjusted without any 
such extreme measures ; the Spaniard acknowledged 
himself to be in fault, and the proceedings concluded 
with " the auncient amities renewed, by feasting each 
other aboord and ashore." The temper of the incident 
is significant of the British determination thus early 
that no Power, however great and aggressive, should 
be allowed to assume an overlordship of the seas. It 
took a long time to convince Philip that the English 
meant what these things implied ; " Achines de Plimua," 
as Hawkins was called in Spain, had to raid him here 
and there to assert the right of free commerce for Eng- 
lishmen ; Drake had to singe his beard in the harbour 
of Cadiz ; Howard, Hawkins, Drake, and the rest, had 
to scatter and destroy his mighty Armada before the 
truth was borne in upon him. 

Perfect daring, the supreme self-confidence that 
comes of faith in a national cause and complete know- 



THE AGE. 9 

ledge of the meEins by which it may be best promoted 
— these were the characteristics of the great seamen of 
Queen Elizabeth. But these quahties in their highest 
manifestation — seen in the achievements of Hawkins 
and his companions — were not the spontaneous crea- 
tion of one generation ; they were a heritage which the 
EHzabethans developed as we know how. It was not 
until the end of the fifteenth century that the English 
gave their minds to maritime discovery. The Wars of 
the Roses had been too absorbing and exhausting to 
permit of any external enterprise. But the era of in- 
ternal peace that was inaugurated with the Tudors 
liberated a tremendous force of character and gallantry, 
which soon began to expend itself in sea-adventures. 
British seamen followed the Portuguese into distant 
seas, and ere a century had passed they had outstripped 
all predecessors and competitors in the boldness of their 
designs and the glory of their achievements. 

A great deal of the work of expansion, conquest, and 
discovery was done by adventurers whose connection 
with the national Navy was loose enough ; so far as the 
Hawkinses were concerned, though they came to the 
front in the first instance as merchant adventurers and 
the patrons of privateers, their association with the 
Navy was close. In those days of Henry VIII, when, 
as already set out, the real foundations of the modern 
Navy system were laid, the first Hawkins who takes 
rank as a great seaman was an officer of the Navy. His 



lo A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

son John became the great " admirall " and Treasurer of 
the Navy ; his grandson Richard also attained the 
highest naval rank. They were all distinguished scions 
of the great race of Plymouth seamen. They were ad- 
venturers, but much more ; they were merchants whose 
genius and industry raised their fortunes so that of 
their wealth they could supply what the parsimony of 
their sovereign left lacking on occasions ; they could 
share in the greatest financial enterprises of their time. 
They were daring sailors, but much more ; they were, if 
not courtiers, yet skilled men in statecraft, and leaders 
commanding a devotion that amounted almost to idol- 
atry. They were the epitome of the spirit of their 
age. 

What that spirit was may be read in the eloquent 
words of Froude. It was the spirit of liberty, of in- 
dependence, of freedom ; the world was opening wide 
before Englishmen ; the ocean-sea was giving up to 
them its remotest secrets. That which stood between 
them and the fairest prospects that the earth could offer 
was the power of Spain ; that power it was which also 
menaced their civil and religious liberties at home. It 
was Spain that intrigued with Mary Queen of Scots 
and stirred up rebellion ni Ireland; it was Spain 
that threw English seamen and traders into the 
prisons of the Inquisition, starved and tortured them, 
or burned tliem at the stake. The story of the illicit 
war on the Spanish possessions, preceding the licit 



THE AGE. II 

war that culminated in the Armada, is the story of 
a nation s great uprismg and outcry against the preten- 
sions of " Popish tyranny " and Spanish ImperiaHsm. 
The leaders and the spokesmen were the seamen of the 
West. In the Western seas, in the Spanish ports, they 
took their price for the massacres of Smithfield, for the 
horrors to which their brothers and friends had been 
subjected in Spanish prisons ; they damaged the pos- 
sessions and harassed the subjects of the State which 
was their nation's enemy ; they began the long process 
of destroying the proud, vainglorious power of Spain. 

It is not to be pretended that altruistic motives, or 
even patriotism, alone ruled the conduct of the adven- 
turers of the West. Their imagination was fired by 
hope of rich reward for those who would dare venture ; 
plunder played its part in their endeavours ; the love of 
adventure for adventure's sake was also potent. Some 
facts and many fictions were circulated in England re- 
lating to the wealth the Spaniards derived from their 
possessions in the West Indies and on the Pacific Coast ; 
El Dorado beckoned. These excited the desires of 
merchants, speculators and soldiers of fortune. But any 
impartial reading of the original papers of the time, 
written by the sailors themselves or their chroniclers, 
must convince that to regard them as mere buccaneers 
and pirates is to entertain a sorry misconception. A 
great deal of the work done by the Hawkinses, for in- 
. stance, was in the nature of perfectly fair trading, and 



12 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

would do no shame to honest merchants and ship- 
owners of our day. And so far as the spoihng of 
Spanish ships and the capture of Spanish treasure was 
concerned, it is to be remembered that Spain was The 
Enemy, and that these men fully believed themselves 
to be serving God and their Queen what time they also 
helped themselves to the contents of Philip's galleons. 
They did unto Philip as they knew Philip would do 
unto them if he might. 

In any estimate of the events of this period, the 
fact must be constantly kept in view that the warfare 
between the English privateers — whether equipped with 
the Royal assistance and consent or not — and the 
Spaniards was but emblematic of the greater conflict be- 
tween the two systems striving for mastery on the con- 
tinent of Europe. If a blow could be struck in any part 
of the world at a Spanish ship, it was a blow at the 
Arch-Enemy, a blow at the Catholic system, a blow at 
the Power which would have imposed the Inquisition on 
the whole world. English seamen knew the Inquisition, 
how relentlessly it struck down the unhappy Protestant 
who got within its reach. " It was not necessary that 
a poor sailor should have been found teaching heresy. 
It was enough if he had an English Bible and Prayer 
Book with him in his kit ; and stories would come into 
Dartmouth or Plymouth how some lad that everybody 
knew — Bill or Jack or Tom, who had wife or father 
or mother among them, perhaps — had been seized hold 



THE AGE. 13 

of for no other crime, been flung into a dungeon, tor- 
tured, starved, set to work in the galleys, or burned in 
a fool's coat, as they called it, at an auto-de-fe at 
Seville."* Galleons burning to the water's edge, rifled 
treasuries of Spanish gold, fierce fights at sea, raids on 
Spanish colonial towns — these made answer to the auto- 
de-fe ; and a man of Plymouth or Dartmouth sailed 
into the powder murk with no less heart because of the 
fate of Bill or Jack or Tom whom he had known in the 
High Street or the Butterwalk, or had accom- 
panied to St. Andrew's or St. Saviour's, or had 
joined in dance and carouse at the Midsummer 
Night's Wake. 

Who shall doubt the sincerity of a man like John 
Hawkins when, writing to Burleigh, he says : " I have 
briefly considered upon a substantial course and the 
material reasons that by mine own experience I know 
(with God's assistance) will strongly annoy and offend 
the King of Spain, the mortal enemy of our religion and 
the present government of the realm of England " .''t 
Hawkins was no sniveller, no hypocrite ; when he in- 
voked the Divine assistance for a project of annoying 
and offending PhiHp as the mortal enemy of the Enghsh 
church and nation, he believed that he would get it, 
and acted in that belief. It is time to destroy the im- 
pression that the seamen out of the West were no better 

* Froude : " English Seamen." 

t Hawkins to Lord Burleigh. State Papers, 



14 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

than pirates and corsairs, and that their only motive was 
plunder. They were devout and God-fearing men in 
their fashion, and they made no doubt that their war- 
fare was religious as well as political and personal. 
Hawkins's saiHng orders to his crews in 1564 form no 
bad rule of conduct : " Serve God daily ; love one 
another ; preserve your victuals ; beware of fire ; and 
keep good company." 

To come even closer to this question of the morality 
of the plunder accomplished on the high seas, the case 
must be judged by the ruling ethic of the age ; and the 
privateers had fair precedent for everything they did 
in the notorious instance of the Genoese ducats. It was 
in 1568 that Philip, pressed by the necessities of the 
war in the Netherlands, borrowed half a million sterling 
from two banking-houses of Genoa. The money, des- 
patched by several ships, was to be delivered to the 
Duke of Alva at Antwerp. The privateers of the 
Channel, with their headquarters at Plymouth, obtained 
information of the approach of the treasure-ships, gave 
chase to them, and drove them to various harbours for 
shelter, so that Alva's war-chest, instead of arriving 
safely at Antwerp, was distributed in the ports of Ply- 
mouth, Southampton, and Fowey. One of the vessels, 
commanded by Capitan Diaz, sailed into a hornets' nest 
in Plymouth Sound, where were numerous ships of the 
Prince of Conde's private fleet and Enghsh vessels flying 
his flag. William Hawkins, mayor of the town, brother 



THE AGE. 15 

of John Hawkins, was awaiting the arrival of the latter 
from San Juan de Ulloa.* The Spaniards under Diaz 
knew all about the treachery proposed, if not of the 
actual disaster that had befallen Hawkins ; and the 
Spanish captain was naturally anxious to prevent the 
news from reaching Plymouth's ears. He therefore 
made up a cock-and-bull story for local consumption 
to the effect that John Hawkins's expedition had been 
completely successful, and that he was returning laden 
with fabulous riches ; " the worst boy in those ships 
might be a captain for riches." 

Unfortunately for Sefior Diaz, not long after his own 
arrival came the veritable news of San Juan ; and 
English indignation vented itself upon him and his 
treasure. William Hawkins implored permission to 
make war on the ducats that Diaz carried in order that 
he might himself be recompensed for his losses in the 
ill-fated expedition. He did not get it, but the govern- 
ment landed the money and conveyed it to London by 
road. There the agent of the Genoese bankers found 
that Queen Elizabeth's security was better than King 
Philip's, and decided to lend it to the English govern- 
ment. Consequently, half the wealth designed to assist 
in the shedding of Protestant blood in the Low Coun- 
tries was sent to the Protestant Prince of Orange, and 
the other half went to the support of the Protestant 
Queen Elizabeth's Navy. 

* See Chapter IX. 



i6 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

It is a curious attitude of mind that questions the 
wisdom of such a proceeding. True, England was not 
now nominally at war with Spain, but the conditions of 
war existed very completely in everything but name, 
and the name itself was added at the very end of the 
contest a few years later. The English people were cer- 
tainly at war with Spain, and the systems represented 
by Philip and Elizabeth were in the throes of a struggle 
for life and death. Without the seamanship, the bravery, 
the daring of the privateers, without the experience they 
had gained in all parts of the Western world, it is not 
unlikely that the history of 1588 might have read very 
differently, and the Great Deliverance would have been 
impossible. Men must be judged by the light of their 
age ; England, judging the sea-dogs of Elizabeth by 
the light of the sixteenth century, has approved them 
brave patriots and dauntless heroes, and enshrined them 
in imperishable memory. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE FAMILY OF HAWKINS. 

William Hawkins, Father of John— First of His Three Voyages to 
Brazil— His Second Voyage— Brings back a Native Prince — 
His Third Voyage — Marries the Daughter and Heiress of Roger 
Trelawny — An Appreciation of His Character. 

" Old Master William Hawkyns,"* as Hakluyt calls 
him, father of Sir John, was a great sea captain who 
in 1 513 was probably master of The Great Galley, 
second ship in Henry's Navy. In later years his sea- 
manlike skill, his knowledge of the world, his adven- 
turous disposition, and his genius for business obtained 
for him the distinguished favour of bluff King Hal. It 
is not possible to ascertain just how the friendship be- 
tween the sovereign and the Plymouth sailor grew up. 
"King Harry loved a man," quotes Froude ; and adds: 
" He knew a man when he saw one. He made acquaint- 
ance with sea-captains at Portsmouth and Southamp- 
ton. In some way or other he came to know one Mr. 
WiUiam Hawkins, of Plymouth, and held him in especial 
esteem." But we can hardly be in doubt that it was 
through his qualities and reputation as a seaman that 

* Note A, p. 284. 
c 17 



i8 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Hawkins's acquaintance with the King came about ; 
those fine quaHties and that high reputation certainly 
preserved him in the royal favour thereafter. 

By trading and adventuring he acquired a large for- 
tune. He was the owner of a considerable property in 
Plymouth, and is described as one of the richest men, 
if not actually the richest man, in the town. In the 
earUest list in existence of freemen of the old borough, 
he stands- fifth on the roll. He was " Receiver " in the 
year 1524-5, and, in the later years of his life, was twice 
mayor. Mr. Worth,* who examined the records of the 
Corporation minutely, thought that in all probability he 
was admitted a freeman in the early years of the cen- 
tury. He became member of Parliament for Plymouth, 
and for discharging his duties as a representative he 
was paid the sum of sixteen pence a day. Elsewhere in 
the books of the Corporation, he is mentioned as having 
been conspicuous in 1527-8 in "manning the bulwarks 
to defend the argosy against the Frenchmen." The 
exact record of this incident is as follows: — 

"Item received of tharrogosye for defending their shippe 
against the fifrenshemen that woukl have taken her, xvji' 
xivs iyd," 

" Tharrogosye " was " the argosy " — probably a Span- 
ish merchant vessel attacked by the French — and 
the ;£"i6 14s. 4d. was compensation for the part taken 
by the men of Plymouth in saving her from capture. 
* Note B, p. 285. 



THE FAMILY OF HAWKINS. 19 

At this time, it may be noted, the Enghsh were hand in 
glove with the nation destined to be their bitterest foe 
fifty years later. The Reformation proper had not 
begun, and Henry VIII. and Charles V. were leagued 
together against France. 

Now, before he had come into national prominence, 
William Hawkins was a noteworthy person on his native 
heath, a capitalist who could lend money to the Cor- 
poration, or purchase suppHes for them, and afford to 
wait for repayment by instalments. Thus, in 1529 he 
sold to the town 196 lbs. of gunpowder and two braiis 
guns. The gunpowder was taken at the price of 6d. 
per lb., and the total debt was repaid by the Corpora- 
tion in three annual instalments of £^. Six years after- 
wards he lent cash to the borough Fathers, which was 
paid back in annuities of £^ a year. Earlier than 
this, Hawkins had begun the three voyages on which 
his historical fame as a seaman rests. The hrst of 
them may be fixed about the year 1528. Mention 
has already been given to the fact that, on the libera- 
tion of English enterprise after the Wars of the Roses, 
the thoughts of men were turned to new lands of pro- 
mise and English began to follow Portuguese and Span- 
ish adventurers over the Western Ocean. The voyages 
performed in the reign of Henry VII. were not organised 
by Englishmen. As Froude says : — 

" Columbus had offered the New World to Henry VII. 
while the discovery was still in the air. He had sent his 



20 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

brother to England with maps and globes, and quotations 
from Plato to prove its existence. Henry, like a practical 
Englishman, treated it as a wild dream. The dream had 
come from the gate of horn. America was found, and the 
Spaniard, and not the English, came into first possession of 
it. Still, America was a large place, and John Cabot, the 
Venetian, with his son Sebastian, tried Henry again. England 
might still be able to secure a slice. This time Henry VH. 
listened. Two small ships were fitted out at Bristol, crossed 
the Atlantic, discovered Newfoundland, coasted down to 
Florida, looking for a passage to Cathay, but could not find 
one. The elder Cabot died ; the younger came home. The 
expedition failed, and no interest had been roused."* 

It remained for Henry VIII. and William Hawkins 
to wake interest and tempt Englishmen to reach for the 
prizes that awaited their arrival in the far-off seas. 
Sebastian Cabot made another voyage to the River 
Plate in 1527, sent forth by Spanish merchants who in- 
tended that the ships should go to the Moluccas. The 
English had some hand in this expedition, for we are 
told by Robert Thorne — a Plymouth man, like Hawkins 
— that he and his partners advanced 1,400 ducats mainly 
in order that two friends of his who were " learned in 
cosmographie " should go in the ships and report to him 
on the country visited and obtain such useful knowledge 
as they could pick up about the navigation of those seas. 
It is to be remarked, however, that the first purely 
English expedition to the American continent was taken 
out by William Hawkins ; further, that it was organised 
and equipped by him, and was his own private adven- 

* Fioude : " Enijlish Seamen." 



THE FAMILY OF FIAWKINS. 21 

ture. This was the voyage of 1528. Hakluyt, in intro- 
ducing his account of it, remarks that Hawkins, " a man 
for l^is wisedom, valure, experience, and skill in sea 
causes much esteemed and beloued of K. Henry the 8, 
and being one of the principall Sea-captaines in the 
West parts of England in his time, not contented with 
the short voyages commonly made then onely to the 
knowne coaste of Europe, armed out a tall and goodlye 
shippe of his owne of the burthen of 250 tunnes called 
the Faille of Plimmouth." He adds that it was in this 
ship that Hawkins made " three long and famous 
voyages unto the coast of Brasil," and that such an 
enterprise was in those days very rare, "especially to 
our Nation." 

The adventure led first to the Guinea Coast, and 
thus, curiously, set the precedent for the celebrated route 
adopted by John Hawkins in after times. The Paiile of 
Plimmouth sailed into the mouth of the River Sestos, 
where Hawkins dropped anchor and began bartering 
with the natives and securing some of the profits that 
went to the building of the fortunes of the house. Ivory 
(" oliphant's teeth ") and other commodities which the 
negroes had to dispose of were shipped into his vessel, 
and when his business was completed, he weighed and 
shaped a course to the West. The Paule was the first 
British ship that ever pushed a way into the waters 
of the Brazilian coast. 

If William Hawkins had not been a great sailor and 



22 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

a great merchant, he would have been a statesman and 
a diplomatist. No ambassador from one friendly Power 
to another could have acted with more tact and dis- 
cretion than he did towards the native chiefs with whom 
he trafficked. In all his voyages to the West, he never 
encountered any serious hostility or trouble, sagacious 
old trader and prescient man that he was. He " behaved 
himself so wisely with those savage people that he grew 
into great familiarity and friendship with them." Haw- 
kins was the first English commander the Indians of 
that region had seen ; they liked him well, for he spoke 
them fairly and treated them justly. Having returned to 
Plymouth, settled the accounts of his expedition, and 
put his affairs in order, he sailed a second time in 1530. 
He was effusively welcomed by the people with whom 
he had dealt before, and, when he weighed again for 
home, had a unique cargo on board. It included not 
only the valuable produce of the country, but a veritable 
native prince, one of the chiefs of the Indian tribes in- 
habiting the Brazilian coastlands. This was the first 
savage chief imported into England. 

Hawkins was something of a courtier, and he knew 
full well how keenly King Henry would appreciate the 
services of a man who should procure him such a novel 
lion for exhibition in London. For this reason he would 
be anxious to make the attempt. But it is no small 
tribute to his suavity and diplomacy that he was able 
to induce the chieftain to accompany him. Remember 



THE FAMILY OF HAWKINS. 23 

that Hawkins was the first Englishman they had known, 
that he had only visited the country once before, and 
that if the people had any prejudices at all about the 
character and motives of the white man, these were de- 
rived from their acquaintance with the Spaniards, of 
whose dealings with the native tribes we know some- 
what. Hawkins's method was to be perfectly frank and 
open with them. Doubtless he told them something of 
the grandeur of England and the marvels that awaited 
their adventurous chief. He agreed to leave behind him 
a hostage, and the pledge he gave was one of his own 
townsmen, Martin Cockeram, of Plymouth. So the 
Paule sailed, the savage potentate was landed at Ply- 
mouth, and by Hawkins taken up to London, and pre- 
sented to the King at Whitehall. He was lionised just 
as better and worse men have been lionised since. The 
King and all the nobility did not a little marvel at the 
sight of this first specimen of the aboriginal American 
brought into England ; as Hakluyt observes, their won- 
derment was not without cause : — 

"For in his cheeks were holes made according to their 
savage manner, and therein small bones were planted, stand- 
ing an inch out from the said holes : which, in his own 
country, was reputed for a great bravery. He Kad also 
another hole in his nether lip, wherein was set a precious 
stone about the bigness of a pea. All his apparel, behaviour, 
and gesture were very strange to the beholders." 

The Brazihan remained in England a year, much 
feted and the object of great public curiosity. Then 



24 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Hawkins commenced the fulfilment of his engagement 
to restore him to his own land unharmed. But royal 
favours, feasting, and the life of a civilisation dif- 
ferent from his own disagreed with the chief's constitu- 
tion, and he died on the voyage back : " It fell out in 
the way that by the change of air and alteration of diet, 
the said savage King died at sea." Here was a crucial 
test of the impression which Hawkins's character had 
made upon his Brazilian friends. If he had not con- 
vinced them of his sincerity and honesty, Master Martin 
Cockeram would never have seen Plymouth any more. 
But Master Cockeram did get back to Plymouth, and 
lived there to a good old age. The Indians, " being fully 
persuaded of the honest dealing of our men with their 
prince," restored the hostage to Hawkins and filled up 
his ship with goods, with which he sailed home to Devon. 
He went once more to the Spanish Main two years 
later, and then settled down to the life of a burgess of 
Plymouth, a prosperous merchant, and a popular Par- 
liament man. He came back from his last voyage laden 
with the wealth of the Indies, and cloaked with the 
mysterious glory of an adventurer into the new world 
of the West. He was immediately elected Mayor of 
Plymouth. 

When next he held that office the situation was 
altered. The Reformation was in full swing. The cru- 
sade against the ecclesiastical establishments had been 
set moving, and they had commenced pulling down the 



THE FAMILY OF HAWKINS. 25 

images in the churches and confiscating the parochial 
plate and valuables. " The Pious and Godly Institution 
of a Christian Man " had been compiled, the "monasteries 
had been suppressed, and the Abbeys had been rifled — 
among them those of Tavistock and Plympton, close 
home — Becket had been unsainted : the plate and jewels 
of the mother church of Plymouth, St. Andrew's, shared 
the fate of all the rest. The sympathies of Plymouth 
were Puritan from early times, and at the commence- 
ment of the Reformation it gave earnest of what it 
would do in another hundred years, when it was to make 
so great a fight on behalf of the Parliament against the 
Crown. It entered with zeal into the new movement, 
and became the headquarters of Huguenot privateers in 
the Channel. 

William Hawkins, the leader of Plymouth men during 
his life, was the guiding spirit in the new movement, 
and it was with no mean satisfaction that he, as Mayor, 
received on behalf of the Corporation in 1540 the 
" church juells and other thynges," and made arrange- 
ments for their sale in London. In 1543 a still larger 
quantity of church furniture was handed to him, " to by 
therewith for the Toune gunpowder bowys and for 
arowys." During one of his visits to the capital in the 
capacity of member of Parhament he made these pur- 
chases — ten barrels of gunpowder, twenty bows, and 
thirty sheaves of arrows. His wealth and consequence 
continued to increase. In 1544 he bought the Manor of 



26 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Sutton Vawter — the estate remained in the hands of 
the family for a century — and became the owner of other 
property in the town. In 1553, the year in which he had 
been re-elected to Parliament, the old man died. 

It has seemed well to recite these details of a fine, 
active, useful life — a life full-blooded with the stream of 
enterprise that upsprang in the midst of the sixteenth 
century — in order to show the nature of the stock from 
which Sir John Hawkins issued. " Old William Haw- 
kins " — so called contemporaneously to distinguish him 
from his son William — was, in fact, the first, the patri- 
arch, of the Sea Dogs of Devon. Now note the family 
into which he married. Sir John Trelawny, distin- 
guished owner of a great Cornish name, was with Henry 
at the Battle of Agincourt in 141 5. He displayed great 
bravery in the fight, and the King rewarded him with 
an addition to his coat of arms and a pension of ;£^20 per 
annum. On a tablet over the West Gate of the town of 
Launceston were the arms of Henry V., with an effigy, 
and beneath a couplet graven — 

"He that will do aught for mee, 
Let hym love well Sir John Trelawnee." 

The third son of Sir John was Roger Trelawny, after- 
wards of Brightorre ; Roger's only daughter and heiress 
was Joan, and Joan Trelawny became wife of William 
Hawkins. In this way, the merchant and adventurer 
allied himself with a good family and acquired a large 



THE FAMILY OF HAWKINS. 2; 

fortune at the same time. The marriage was blessed 
with two sons, the elder, William, named after his father, 
and the younger, John, after his grandfather. It is the 
latter whose career we are to follow. 

It is impossible, however, to leave the first of the 
Plymouth captains without a sentence or two in tribute 
of admiration for his strong and sterling character. He 
was valiant in action and sage in counsel. He had the 
wisdom of the serpent and the gentleness of the dove. 
He lived a long and varied Hfe, and he brought to the 
training of his two sons all the manifold advantages that 
an experience of the world almost unique in his day 
could give him. He had been a war-commander in the 
very infancy of naval warfare with explosive weapons ; 
he had smelt powder in actions against the French ; he 
knew of the business of a merchant what the known 
world could tell him ; he had seen lands and peoples on 
which his eyes were the first English eyes to gaze ; he 
had taken a full share in the duties of the chief office of 
his native town ; he was at home in the Court and in 
the Parliament House. No more versatile character ap- 
pears till his own sons go forth. And in all the later 
years of his life, it is the sea that calls him : as he stands 
on his quays at Plymouth, or walks upon its cliffs, it is of 
the Brazils that he talks to the youths budding into 
manhood, and of his last voyage in the Paule of Plini- 
mouth, completed when they were in infancy. And this 
is their inspiration. Wilham is already a man of con- 



28 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

sideration, and, as his father's heir, will become a great 
shipowner, whose cruisers will be a constant deadly 
menace to the King of Spain and his fleets. John is just 
of age, and will presently make voyages far surpassing 
anything his father has achieved, become the organiser 
of the English Navy, and help to defeat the Armada. 
And so, with a long record of duty well done, having 
founded a race that shall live as long as the sea-history 
of his land, the old man closes his eyes upon the glitter 
of the waters and passes to his grave. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE YOUTH OF JOHN HAWKINS. 

Plymouth Present and Pa/st — Francis Drake — William Hawkins, 
John's Brother — John's Education — His Passion for Seamanship — 
His Determination to break down the Spanish Monopoly. 

John Hawkins, born in 1532, has been described as 
Patriarch of the Sea-Rovers. Reasons have been set out 
why that proud title belongs of prior right to his father. 
In his gay response to the invitation of the sea — none 
can doubt that it was gay and gladsome, for if ever the 
world held a born sailor it was John Hawkins — he was 
but following in the wake of his sire, fulfilling the tradi- 
tion established in the time of the Paule of Plimmouth. 
The craving for adventure, the desire for progress in 
the art of seamanship, the admixture of the craft of 
ambassador and statesman and courtier with that of 
sailor and warrior — the precedent for these was great 
and recent in the family that gathered in the old house 
in Kinterbury-street of Plymouth. 

Those who know the Plymouth of to-day and haply 
are acquainted with the narrow, darksome, grimy, utili- 
tarian lane of factories and poor houses that bears the 

29 



30 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

ancient name, and occupies the site of the fair mansions 
and gardens once ranged along the slope overlooking 
the valley and harbour of Sutton, v^ill have difficulty in 
conjuring up the scene it must have presented in the 
sixteenth century. A great deal of the older part of 
Plymouth which was fashionable when Hawkins and 
Drake walked its streets has so degenerated. The High 
Street, near by Kinterbury Street, and other thorough- 
fares have " come down " in a melancholy manner as the 
tide of business and wealth has spread inland. The old 
houses, or such of them as remain, are let out in flats to 
the poorest people, and there is no means of identifying 
the place where the house and garden stood that old 
William Hawkins bought in 1537. Of Kinterbury 
Street in an aesthetic sense the less said the better. 
But when the Hawkinses occupied that " tenement 
and garden in a certain venella on the east of Kin- 
terbury Street," the condition of affairs was very dif- 
ferent ; this was suburban luxury, embowered in green. 
From the sloping garden the boys had a fine, inspiriting 
outlook over the eastern harbour of Plymouth, Sutton 
Pool, and the Cattewater, that sheltered, almost land- 
locked arm of the sea where their father's ships lay, 
where they were themselves to embark on many a 
memorable voyage. 

Nor was it a far cry to The Hawe, as the Hoe was 
then called — signifying a height — the historic cliff where 
Drake is reputed to have been playing bowls in 1588 



THE YOUTH OF JOHN HAWKINS. 31 

when news of the arrival of Philip's Armada was brought. 
There they would be in the exciting times of their youth, 
when the old men played their games and told their tales 
of danger faced and glory won, when ships were going 
and coming between Plymouth Sound and all the known 
oceans. There, with no huge breakwater intervening 
between them and the vision of the Channel, with no 
lighthouse upon the deadly reef of Eddystone, they 
looked out upon the wide sea and felt its fascination, and 
turned from it to the wrinkled faces and blue eyes of 
ancient mariners, and breathed the atmosphere, imbibed 
the intoxication, submitted to the spell of it. The 
great sea called them with command, that great sea 
which was to be the winding sheet of one of them ; 
they felt its oneness with themselves, its harmony 
with the soul within them, these sailors born. 
Their destiny was written in their father's life, in the 
surroundings of their youth. Open-eyed, wide-eared 
boys, listening to the converse of the sea-captains who 
frequented their home, gathered inspiration and stimulus 
for the deeds which in after years were to make them 
famous. 

In another and distant part of England was being 
reared in similar circumstances a boy upon whose history 
their own was to exercise a powerful influence. In 1 544, 
when John Hawkins was twelve years of age, Francis 
Drake was born at Tavistock. He was a kinsman of the 
Hawkinses, who in former years had established connec- 



33 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

tions with the little town on the moorland frontier. 
While William and John Hawkins were watching the 
great growth of private maritime enterprise at Plymouth, 
Francis Drake was witnessing the first great outburst of 
naval progress in England from the banks and boats of 
the Medway, and keeping also the company of sailor- 
men and adventurers. His father had removed from 
Devon to Kent while he was yet very young. Some con- 
troversy has gathered about the question of the rela- 
tionship between Drake and the Hawkinses ; doubt has 
been cast even on its existence. It has been said to be 
improbable because Drake himself never told Camden 
anything about it. Not in itself a very convincing nega- 
tive ; further, we have documentary evidence in the 
affirmative, which is worth a lot more. In a letter from 
William Hawkins, reference is made to " our kinsman 
called Fransyes Dracke " — the occasion being that on 
which Hawkins sent the future hero of Cadiz to London 
to Sir WiUiam Cecil with news of the disaster at San 
Juan. Drake does not seem to have been associated 
with the men of Plymouth till a later period. His first 
sea employment was from the Medway, and it was not 
until he had reached the age of twenty-two that he 
joined John Hawkins in the Guinea trade. Still, there 
would probably have been communication between the 
families. 

The memory of their father's last voyage to the 
Spanish Main was twenty years old when he died and 



THE YOUTH OF JOHN HAWKINS. 33 

the brothers came into the possession of his business, 
his ships, and his wealth. In the same year, WilHam, of 
whom a few words now fall to be said, was admitted to 
the Freedom of Plymouth, so that he was already recog- 
nised as a man of consequence in his native town. He 
stepped at once into his father's place. Indeed, he soon 
far excelled the influence the old gentleman had 
wielded ; it is not long before we find him held in such 
esteem that he is tacitly regarded as the governor of the 
port. It was an unofficial position, arising from the ex- 
tent of his relations with the varied commerce of the 
place and the great importance of his shipping property. 
From the beginning — it was probably the natural accom- 
paniment of his headship of the family — he paid much 
more attention to local affairs than did his brother John, 
and although he was a man of great sea-knowledge and 
experience, he seems never to have had quite so broad 
an outlook upon the world. We discover him concerned 
in obtaining the revised Town's Charter from Queen 
Elizabeth in 1561, and in the transfer of St. Nicholas' 
Island (now known as Drake's Island) to the Corpora- 
tion, and from the Corporation to the Crown ; and at a 
comparatively early age he filled the office of mayor. 
He largely increased the local status of the family. The 
quays that had been built'or purchased by his father in 
Sutton Harbour were fixed by Act of Parliament in 1558 
as the sole quays at which goods might be legally landed 
in Plymouth. His local importance appears to have 



34 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

tended a little in the direction of monopoly. There is, 
however, no evidence that he abused his trust, for he 
remained popular enough to be re-elected mayor, and 
he was occupying the civic chair in the year of the 
Armada. 

William Hawkins's purely local activities and in- 
terests need not detain us ; but one significant fact is to 
be observed. As an owner of ships in the port of Ply- 
mouth, he was one of the earUest organisers of the 
great fleet of privateers that now began the career of 
terrorisation from which Spain suffered for so many 
years. To his influence and encouragement was due the 
circumstance that the volunteer ships of the Prince of 
Conde made their headquarters at Plymouth. Old 
William Hawkins, his father, was an earnest and en- 
thusiastic partisan of the Protestant Reformation. His 
heir was a burning Protestant, and took no small share 
in the historic conversion of Plymouth into a Puritan 
stronghold. And he was not merely a passive owner of 
vessels which made raids on Spanish ships and Catholic 
towns. He himself sailed to the Spanish Main in com- 
mand of his own flotillas, and was in some sharp fighting 
at Porto Rico. He held a commission under the Prince 
of Conde. There is no need to repeat here the drama 
of the Genoese ducats in which he was one of the chief 
actors. 

Long before this, John Hawkins had begun to 
acquire his reputation. It is a rather silly fashion to 



THE YOUTH OF JOHN HAWKINS. 35 

represent every man who became a great seaman and 
fighter in Elizabethan days as a sort of hybrid between 
a stage pirate and a modern coal-lumper ; and Hawkins, 
because he was a bluff and blunt man, has suffered more 
than most of his contemporaries from this kind of fiction. 
In actual fact, he was well-educated and accomplished 
for his time, and lived in excellent style. Some of his 
dispatches show a sense of the effect of words, though 
he was an artist rather with tacks and sheets, with guns 
and money, than with the pen. His first great voyage 
was begun when he was at the age of thirty, in 1562 ; 
but before this, as we learn from Hayluyt, he had made 
several trips to Spain and Portugal and the Canary 
Islands. In the Spanish ports he had heard fascinating 
stories of the glamour and the wealth of the Western 
Islands, which led to his first expedition into those 
waters. 

From his earliest years the seaman-genius of Haw- 
kins had displayed itself. Seamanship was his greatest 
care as a youth ; it became a fixed passion. He culti- 
vated it by the best means he could procure. He read 
mathematics and studied navigation theoretically and 
practically, and gave early promise of the greatness that 
awaited him not only in exploration and pioneering ad- 
venture, but in maritime administration. He showed 
some capacity for affairs generally, and only two years 
later than his brother (1555) was admitted as freeman 
of Plymouth. He was then just twenty-three years of 



36 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

age, but had already entered upon his profession. This 
is demonstrated in a really curious way. There happened 
to be two John Hawkynses admitted freemen in the 
same year, and he is distinguished as " John Hawkyns, 
majynr." One can imagine no title which John Haw- 
kins would have preferred to it, either at twenty-three 
or at sixty-three. He is registered in this year as the 
owner of the Peter of Plymouth, about which vessel it 
was declared that she had been captured by the French 
at sea before war was declared. Such complaint, we may 
take it, was not a very serious matter among men whose 
ideas of such international law as existed were, to say 
the least of it, loose. 

Such a man as John Hawkins was, now achieving 
maturity, would be very unlikely to find content for his 
ambitions in saihng seas that were known, in prosaic 
voyages that everybody else had made to the ports of 
Europe and the western coast of Africa. The great 
world of the West was being opened up. The legends 
current about it could not fail to be attractive to a trader 
of adventurous disposition. 

There was another stimulus which would be equally 
operative in the case of Hawkins. Henry VH. had been 
offered the chance of acquiring for the English every- 
thing that was meant by a first footing in the West 
Indies ; he rejected the opportunity, and it was accepted 
by Spain. Spain did not intend, having won great terri- 
tories and great riches there, to share its wealth with 



THE YOUTH OF JOHN HAWKINS. 37 

any other nation. The facts about the islands and their 
resources, and about the navigation of the waters of 
those regions, were therefore maintained in great 
secrecy. The Spaniards placed an embargo on trade 
between their settlers and the ships of other nations ; 
they built a wall of exclusion. That was one of the 
prime factors in the initiation of John Hawkins's 
voyages. He saw that fame and profit were to be ob- 
tained in the West ; above all he saw that the wall was 
there, and that it was not invulnerable to a man of in- 
genuity and strength. He possessed both in a very high 
degree. He had not made many voyages to the Canaries 
before he came to the determination that the breach 
could be made, and that he would be the man to make 
it. Here we have the origin of the first dispute between 
John Hawkins and Philip of Spain. On it hung 
momentous issues. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE TRADE IN NEGRO SLAVES. 

Hawkins engages in the Slave Trade — How he regarded the Matter — 
The Whole Nation Responsible — The Irregular Warfare between 
Englishmen and Spaniards begins — Hawkins arrives at His- 
paniola — His Return — His Grievance against the Spaniard. 

Up to 1562, Hawkins had been a simple trader. He 
had made a name as a skilful sea-captain, and had added 
largely to his wealth. But it had all been done by way 
of perfectly legitimate business, that is to say, he had 
not come into conflict with any of the peoples with 
whom he traded, and was no foe to their governments. 
In this eventful year, however, occurred the great de- 
parture. He had "made divers voyages to the Isles of 
the Canaries, and ... by his good and upright 
dealing . . . grown in love and favour with the 
people."* It was here he found the immediate inspira- 
tion of his great adventures. The little archipelago was 
intimately associated with the great explorations of the 
fifteenth century. Hence Columbus jumped off upon 
his first venture into the unknown West. John Haw- 
kins's cronies in the Canaries could tell him all that was 

* Hakluyt. 

38 



TRADE IN NEGRO SLAVES. 39 

to be known about " West India " ; he took pains to 
acquire and retain all the information they had to im- 
part. His father's voyages to the western continent, 
though thirty years old, were fresh in his mind. From 
the old house in Kinterbury Street his young imagina- 
tion had sped to the lands beyond the setting of the 
sun ; from the shadow of Teneriffe his man's resolution 
prompted him thither. 

A trader so inspired must know what merchandise 
to take with him into new markets. What the Spanish 
Islands in the Gulf of Mexico wanted most, his Canary 
friends told him, was negroes. After much deliberation 
he determined to become a slave-trader. 

A prodigious quantity of ink and invective has been 
expended in the denunciation of Hawkins as the pioneer 
of England's association with the slave-trade. First, 
as to the fact : he was not the pioneer. John Lok, an 
Englishman, visiting the West Coast for ivory and gold- 
dust some ten years earlier, is entitled to the honour. 
We may therefore cease to execrate Hawkins on that 
score. Lok's view of the subject was ostensibly that of 
Las Casas ; he saw, in the words of Froude, that " the 
negroes were people of beastly living, without God, law, 
religion, or commonwealth, gave some of them oppor- 
tunity of a life in creation, and carried them off as 
slaves." Idle as it is to waste words in expressing 
abomination of the Sixteenth Century Englishman's 
share in the slave traffic, it is equally futile to pretend 



40 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

that philanthropy was the spring of what he did. 
Neither Lok nor Hawkins was moved by any altruistic 
considerations in his action. If, by their removal from 
their native shores where they were oppressed by their 
own chiefs, raided by neighbouring tribes, carried off to 
torture and captivity, and saw their brothers and sisters 
on the table, and by their transference in slavedom to 
the Western islands, where they were at least fed in- 
stead of being fed on, the negroes were benefited, that 
was not the reason why Lok captured and sold them to 
West Indian traders, or Hawkins took shiploads of them 
to Hispaniola. In a great many cases this was what 
actually happened. In others, the slavers relieved 
chiefs of their most troublesome subjects, " who would 
otherwise have been hanged. Thieves, murderers, 
and such-like were taken down to the depots and 
sold." 

Yet, when all this has been said, it is on no such 
pretence that we should hang a defence of the conduct 
of John Hawkins. Himself would have been startled 
to find that any such pretence was considered necessary. 
In his own opinion and the opinion of his time, if he 
was transgressing any law it was not a law of humanity 
or morality, but the law of a foreign State — a law quite 
subject to transgression by a bold man because it was 
a law of protection and monopoly. Hawkins was merely 
embarking in a new branch of business, and it was busi- 
ness v/hich was regarded all over the world as perfectly 



TRADE IN NEGRO SLAVES. 41 

legitimate. Certainly in the England of Elizabeth's 
day — and we must endeavour to get the perspective of 
the time if we are to attempt to judge its actions — 
slave-trading, was regarded with no horror ; there was no 
party in the State to compare with the humanitarian 
party that properly arises in our own day at the whisper 
of forced labour ; there were very few apostles of the 
fine gospel of the Brotherhood of Man. 

Slavery had horrible results, and to try to depict the 
attitude of mind in which the Elizabethans approached 
it is certainly not to set up a defence of the institution. 
What we are concerned to notice is that John Hawkins 
contributed no appreciable drop to the volume of misery 
that resulted from the establishment of negro slavery 
in America. Every account of him makes Hawkins a 
man of large heart and generous sympathies. What he 
did was to divert into his own pockets and those of the 
people who adventured with him some of the profits 
that would otherwise have been retained by the 
Spaniards and the Portugals. Slavery was a very 
flourishing trade ere ever he touched it. The wither- 
ing effects of the Spanish occupation upon the natives 
of the Caribbean Isles had rendered the importation of 
labour necessary for the planters. Familiar illustra- 
tions of the same problem may be found in twentieth- 
century experience, and need no reference here. Charles 
the Fifth had issued licences for the importation of 
negroes into the West Indies as long ago as 1515. Sir 



42 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Clements Markham* Has adduced an excellent argument 
against the reasonableness of blaming John Hawkins 
for the part of England in the slave trade, by pointing 
out that whatever obloquy attaches to it must be shared 
by the whole EngHsh people for a period of 250 years: 
" The English were particularly eager to enter upon the 
slave-trade; and by the Treaty of Utrecht, in 171 3. 
England at length obtained the asiento, giving her the 
exclusive right to carry on the slave trade between 
Africa and the Spanish Indies for thirty years. So 
strong was the party in favour of this trade in England 
that the contest for its abolition was continued for forty- 
eight years, from 1759 to 1807." 

Just two hundred and thirty years after John 
Hawkins's first slaving voyage began, there was a 
debate in the House of Commons in which the very 
arguments that would have appealed to the Elizabethans 
were used. I have a report of a speech by Colonel 
Tarleton, in which he contrasted the lenity of the West 
India government with the savage ferocity of the 
African princes in their effects upon the life of a negro. 
And he added that " if we were inclined to rehnquish 
the traffic, the other nations of Europe would not follow 
our example, but would make their advantage of our 
folly. The Dutch and the French would deride us for 
giving up our share in a beneficial commerce, which 
would nevertheless go on. The losses would be ours ; 

* Introduction to " Hawkins's V^oyages. " 



TRADE IN NEGRO SLAVES. 43 

the profit would be theirs. An equal number of slaves 
would continue to be imported into the West Indies, 
and the case of the African would be exactly the same, 
whether he crossed the Atlantic in an English or any- 
other European bottom." If this contention prevailed 
upon the British House of Commons for many years 
against the eloquence of Wilberforce, it is surely foolish 
to condemn Hawkins for yielding to it more than two 
centuries before, when the traffic had the blessing of 
the Church, and he was able to induce his own Queen 
to join him in it. This is a somewhat inordinate digres- 
sion from the narrative ; but most of the writers on the 
subject take so hurried and partial a view of it, barely 
mentioning Hawkins's slaving voyages as a national 
infamy, that some detailed consideration seemed neces- 
sary. It is more conveniently dealt with here than 
during the description of the voyages. 

Having, then, returned to Plymouth from the last of 
those divers voyages to the Isles of the Canaries before 
he ventured farther afield, Hawkins had fully made up 
his mind as to the destination of his next, the " mer- 
chandise " he would carry, and the means by which he 
would do his business. That " diligent inquisition " of 
his at Santa Cruz had borne its fruit, and he was pre- 
pared to risk all that had to be risked in order to 
establish himself as a trader to the West Indies. Up 
to the present time, though he was a Protestant, and 
his brother was encouraging the French Protestant 



44 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

privateers, and John, though much at sea, knew all the 
lively doings of Plymouth Sound and Cattewater, yet he 
was friendly with the Spaniards, and did most of his 
business with them. He did not go about his West 
Indian adventures of ^et purpose to come into 
conflict with the Spanish government ; but if a 
collision did occur he was bound to take the 
chances of it. 

Still, as I have said, the decision at which he had 
arrived during his voyages to the Canaries was mo- 
mentous. It was, in fact, the first step towards that 
irregular warfare between the private squadrons of 
English adventurers and the Imperial fleets of Spain 
which terminated in dire catastrophe for King Philip. 
It is not possible to agree with those writers who suggest 
that Hawkins was surprised by the issue, and had no 
expectation that his venture would end in conflict. It 
is true that the Spanish merchants encouraged him in 
the idea, and that his cargoes were welcomed in the 
islands ; but none knew better than Hawkins how 
jealously the Spanish Government guarded all the 
secrets of their Western possessions, how determined 
they were that the ships of other nations should not 
plough the waters of the Gulf of Mexico or trade in 
their harbours ; they had El Dorado, and they meant 
to keep it to themselves. This determination, this 
jealousy, were menaced by his first voyage to His- 
paniola ; the man who projected it could not be ignorant 



TRADE IN NEGRO SLAVES. 45 

of its possible consequences. Hawkins was a long- 
sighted man ; he saw at least as far as that. He was 
also a dogged man, slow to arrive at a decision, im- 
movable in it when once it was taken. 

On his return to Plymouth, he had concluded that 
the affair was a little bigger than he cared to under- 
take entirely on his own responsibility. He communi- 
cated his idea to certain friends. Four years before, 
Hawkins had been married to Katherine Gonson, 
daughter of Benjamin Gonson, Treasurer of the Navy. 
He thus secured an alliance which was to have an im~ 
portant influence upon his career. The Gonson family 
had been closely associated with the Navy for many 
years. William Gonson, father of Hawkins's beaii-pere, 
had been treasurer in Henry VHI.'s time, when old 
William Hawkins commanded The Great Galley, and 
Benjamin had meirried Ursula Hussey, daughter 
of an Admiralty Judge. In addition to the 
Gonsons, he had many other influential friends in 
London. 

It was to them that Hawkins turned now 
for assistance in his venture. Some of them 
were great merchants, and it is evidence of the 
high repute in which his capabilities were held 
that they found it good and lent it countenance and 
financial support. It was a scheme more daring than 
any Enghshman had ever propounded, but they knew 
that if any EngUshinan could carry it through, Hawkins 



46 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

was the man. " The first EngHshman," says a con- 
temporary,* " that gave any attempt on the coasts of 
West India was Sir John Hawkins, Knight : who there 
and in that attempt, as in many others sithens, did and 
hath proved himself to be a man of excellent capacity, 
great government, and perfect resolution. For before 
he attempted the same it was a matter doubtful and 
reported the extremest limit of danger to sail upon 
those coasts . . ." Benjamin Gonson knew all this, 
and so did Sir Lionel Ducket, Sir Thomas Lodge, Sir 
William Winter, Mr. Bronfield, and others to whom the 
plan was unfolded. But they made no difficulty about 
providing the money and the ships : they all " Hked so 
well of his intention," as Hakluyt puts it, " that they 
became liberal contributors and adventurers in the 
action." 

The expedition was fitted out at Plymouth. It con- 
sisted of three cockleshells, as we should consider them 
now: the Solomon, the flagship, of 120 tons burthen; 
the Swallow, of 100 tons, one Hampton being captain ; 
and the Jonas, of 40 tons. Froude has expressed sur- 
prise at the dimensions of the ships ; he speaks of them 
as " inconceivably small." But even in our own day, a 
ketch-rigged vessel not so large as the Swallow 
annually makes two round trips across the stormy 
Western Ocean from Plymouth. And no doubt Haw- 
kins thought he was respectably equipped. He had 

* John Davis: "World's Hydrographical Description." 



TRADE IN NEGRO SLAVES. 47 

under him all told about a hundred men, "for fear of 
sickness and other inconveniences, whereunto men in 
long voyages are commonly subject." 

In October, 1562, then, the road to the West Indies 
was inaugurated for the English. The vessels weighed 
at Plymouth, and shaped a course for the Canaries. 
At Santa Cruz he was among his old enthusiastic 
friends. They knew of his project, wished him luck 
in it, and gave him and Hampton and their men 
"friendly entertainment." Whereafter they left the 
islands to embark upon the real business of the cruise. 
They cast anchor off Sierra Leone, and began to collect 
negroes and other goods. He " got into his possession, 
partly by the sworde, and partly by other meanes, to the 
number of 300 negroes at the least, besides other mer- 
chandises which that country yieldeth." Hawkins had 
been to the Guinea Coast before, and knew the trade. He 
did not give offence by competing with the Government 
depots for his booty ; he picked up slaves where he 
could get them with the least amount of fuss, and we 
may be sure that the " sworde " was not employed a 
great deal. The local chiefs never showed much back- 
wardness about disposing of their prisoners of war and 
their criminals ; it was much more profitable than be- 
heading them and eating them, or feeding them in 
captivity. The manner of the transaction necessitated a 
long stay on the coast ; but when he had his three 
hundred blacks safely on board, Hawkins made short 



48 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

work of the rest of it. " He sailed over the ocean sea 
unto the island of Hispaniola." 

So had Columbus sailed over the ocean sea exactly 
eighty years before, and on the coast of Hispaniola lost 
and abandoned the Santa Maria during the voyage 
which discovered the New World. In this island, which 
he named " Espagnola," or Little Spain, there were 
about two millions of people when the Spaniards took 
possession of it. They were of a low type, and, accord- 
ing to Spanish authorities, deficient in intellect, morals, 
and physique. They were effectually exterminated by 
thirty years of abject slavery imposed upon them by ad- 
venturers who were attracted by fabulous stories of the 
golden wealth of Espagnola. Long before that, the negro 
traffic had begun, and it was maintained in great volume 
all through the sixteenth century. The history of Hayti 
serves in a measure to vindicate the arguments of those 
who said that their removal to the West Indies was 
good for the blacks ; they could endure labour under 
conditions which were death to the Caribs, and they 
thrived upon it, increased and multipHed, took posses- 
sion of the country and rule it at this day. 

Hawkins struck the island on the North, and his 
flotilla dropped anchor at Port Isabella. His first pro- 
ceedings were the very pattern of diplomacy. It was 
true, he said, that he had three hundred negroes with 
him, and he was willing to sell them if he could obtain 
permission. But that was not his primary object ; he 



TRADE IN NEGRO SLAVES. 49 

had been driven out of his course while on a voyage of 
exploration, and he wanted money and supplies. The 
local Spanish authorities saw nothing wrong in this. 
There was a state of peace between England and Spain. 
It was true that they had general orders with regard to 
the treatment of foreigners who arrived in those waters ; 
but this foreigner was harmless so far as they knew. He 
had things to sell which the people of Espagnola wanted 
to buy. Black labour was in great demand, and it 
would have been rejecting the good gifts of Providence 
and transgressing the general desire to have allowed this 
first foreign importer to go away without achieving the 
projected deal. They therefore made terms with him, 
advantageous both to them and to him, and chanced 
what the Government of Madrid would say about it. 
How that fell out is in the sequel. 

At Isabella, Hawkins " had reasonable utterance of 
his English Commodities, as also of some part of his 
Negroes," Hakluyt says, " trusting the Spaniards no 
further than that, by his own strength, he was able to 
master them." Assuredly, John Hawkins would never 
make the mistake of trusting strangers beyond reason- 
able bounds ; but there is ample evidence to show that 
his relations, not only with the planter purchasers of 
his wares, but also with the authorities, were perfectly 
amicable. There was no occasion for any display of 
force. From Isabella, Hawkins moved on to Puerto 
Plata, and repeated the performance ; he finished hi§ 



50 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

bartering at Monte Cristi. The arrangement with the 
Governor of the island was that he should sell two hun- 
dred of his blacks and leave the others with the authori- 
ties in case of any difficulty about the duty. He re- 
ceived (still quoting Hakluyt) " in those three places by 
way of exchange, such a quantity of merchandise, that 
he did not only lade his own three ships with 
hides, ginger, sugar, and some quantity of pearls ; 
but he freighted also two other Hulks with hides 
and other like commodities, which he sent into 
Spain." The fate of the cargoes thus consigned to 
King Philip's own dominions is also part of the 
sequel. 

Hawkins had good cause to be pleased with the issue 
of his first adventure into the West. It had been more 
successful than there had been any absolute reason to 
expect. If on his arrival at the Port of Isabella he 
trusted the Spaniards " no further than that by his own 
strength he was able to master them," the excellent re- 
ception that had awaited him evidently calmed a good 
many of his suspicions, or he would not have embarked 
any part of his gains in cargoes for Spain. This was 
enough for an initial step, and he ventured no farther 
into the Spanish seas, but stood out into the Atlantic, 
and steered for England. He arrived in Plymouth in 
September, 1563, nearly a year after his departure. He 
was received with much joy by his wife and his brother 
William. He found his son Richard, now aged three, 



TRADE IN NEGRO SLAVES. 51 

grown a year bigger and taller ; his business prospered, 
his star was in the ascendant. The townspeople were 
glad to see the Captain back again. His partners in 
the enterprise were well pleased with his success. And 
all the rejoicing and all the congratulations offered to 
the first Englishman who had opened the route for 
English trade to the golden west were expressed in 
complete ignorance of the momentous fact that this 
exploit had in reality opened another vista — the long 
vista of conflict and bloodshed in which Spain and 
England were engaged for thirty years. 

The Captain himself was not long without an inkling 
of the fact. Not many days after his own arrival in 
Plymouth, there came post-haste his friend Hampton, 
who had sailed with him in the Swallow. Hampton 
had been despatched by Hawkins with the cargoes of 
hides to Spain. They were consigned to an English- 
man in Cadiz named Tipton, who was to dispose of them 
to the best advantage in that port, where they were a 
good marketable commodity. Hampton's story was dis- 
appointing in itself, and alarming for the future. He 
had nothing to show for the cargoes. Immediately upon 
their arrival, Philip, through the officers of the Inquisi- 
tion, had seized and confiscated them. It was also given 
out that an order had been sent to the Governor of His- 
paniola to regard the 125 slaves left there with him as 
forfeit. As for Hampton, he had lost Hawkins's hides 
and run a considerable risk of his own skin, for he had 



52 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

fled from Spain with the familiars of the Inquisition at 
his heels. 

Indeed, the Inquisition was saving up store of ven- 
geance for a day of reckoning to be appointed by the 
seamen of Plymouth and the Western ports. This was 
one more count in the long indictment. Hawkins was 
enraered : the loss to himself and his fellow-adventurers 
was 40,000 ducats. It was not to be borne in patience. 
He set in motion all the machinery on which he could 
lay his fingers for the coercion of Philip into a more 
reasonable temper. He wrote to Philip himself ; prob- 
ably he had been in the presence of the Spanish monarch 
a few years before when the latter landed at Plymouth 
and was lavishly entertained by the Corporation (of 
which Hawkins was a member) at a cost of ;^300. 
Philip saw accurately in Hawkins the forerunner of the 
English merchant-adventurers who were to be stout 
thorns in his side for so many years. It was the begin- 
ning of his almost superstitious hatred of the man and 
his name. He would have no parley with him. No 
eloquence of argument, no fury of threats would move 
him. Finding personal appeal of none avail, Hawkins 
turned to his influential friends in London, and brought 
the Government and the Court to his aid — with just as 
little effect. A letter from Queen Elizabeth to King 
Philip asking consideration for her subject was fruit- 
less. She commanded Sir Thomas Challoner, her Am- 
bassador at Madrid, to intercede for Hawkins, and help 



TRADE IN NEGRO SLAVES. 53 

him to the utmost of his power. PhiHp was obdurate, 
and told Challoner to warn the EngHsh that mischief 
would arise if the visit to the Indies were repeated. Haw- 
kins talked of going to Madrid on the business. Chal- 
loner entreated him to stay at home — Challoner's sym- 
pathies were with Spain, for which he had fought under 
Charles V. : he was half a Spaniard. 

So the wrangle went on for nearly a year. In July, 
1 564, Challoner wrote to Hawkins telling him that there 
was no chance of obtaining any favour from the Spanish 
Court, and advising him to give four or five thousand 
ducats to some favourite of King Philip's to ask for the 
forfeited goods, prescribing that the balance should be 
handed over to the agents of Hawkins. John Hawkins 
did nothing of the sort. He sat in Plymouth brooding 
over his wrongs and meditating his vengeance. The 
illicit war was now declared. Philip's warning was com- 
municated to the Government, and Sir William Cecil 
begged the Queen to forbid any more expeditions of 
the sort. But the Queen at this time had a keener in- 
sight than Cecil's into the real issue that was at stake ; 
the next time Hawkins went westward he sailed in a 
Queen's ship. 



CHAPTER V. 

SECOND VOYAGE TO THE WEST INDIES. 

Hawkins's Deliberateness — Queen Elizabeth lends him the Jesus of 
Lubek — His Second Expedition sets Sail — John Sparke's Log 
of the Voyage — Hawkins's Sailing Orders — A Hostile Reception 
at Teneriffe — A Pinnace capsized — The First Capture of Negroes 
— A Misadventure at Bymba — In Peril at Sierra Leone — Making 
for the Spanish Main — At Margarita — A Call at Cumana. 

Hawkins acted with characteristic caution in the steps 
he took to place himself even with King Philip. He 
never hurried a decision ; he revolved pros and cons ; 
he exhausted all other methods before he proceeded to 
the extreme. He had been disputing with Spain over 
those unhappy cargoes of hides for nearly a year. In 
July, Challoner's letter informed him of the hopelessness 
of his case ; in October, his second expedition sailed. 
Hawkins was slow of resolution because of a native de- 
liberation in all his works, not from any weakness of 
his character, for in action he was the promptest of 
men. He now had a definite grievance to redress, and 
Spain should pay for it 

Sagacious and wily in counsel as he was ready in 
deed, Hawkins knew that this had become a bigger 
affair than could be properly tackled by a private com- 

54 



THE SECOND VOYAGE. 55 

pany of adventurers ; he made the Queen a partner with 
him in his enterprise. Elizabeth hked a resolute man, 
an adventurous man, above all a capable man ; such a 
man she recognised in John Hawkins. Against the 
advice of Cecil — and these proceedings were much too 
strong for his stomach — she went into the business to 
the extent of lending Hawkins her famous ship the 
Jesus of Lubek, a vessel of 700 tons. At httle risk and 
at great profit, she thought, a severe lesson might be 
administered to Philip. The cold sweat into which he 
had been thrown by the first descent of Hawkins upon 
the West Indies showed that in that remote corner of 
the world was a spot where pin-pricks would reach him ; 
Hawkins was an auxiliary arm which would keep Philip 
busy, and distract his attention from other projects that 
might be annoying to his sister-in-law. 

Nominally, England and Spain were on terms of 
peace and friendship ; in fact, the crisis was gathering ; 
this was a means of staving off a more expensive form 
of warfare. Englishmen in 1564 could not have failed 
to read the adumbration of 1588. Again, this was an 
assertion of a truth which was yearly becoming of more 
vital consequence to England — the truth that there is 
no Hen upon the seas. If Englishmen wanted to sail 
in the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico, not all the 
power of Spain should proscribe them. This is im- 
portant to be observed ; also that England placed upon 
the Spanish Government the onus of seeing that its 



S6 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

own laws were obeyed. Hawkins was trading with 
Spanish settlers in the islands who were very willing to 
trade with him ; if the trade were to be prohibited, upon 
the Spanish authorities lay the obligation of enforcing 
the prohibition. In this view of the matter — it was un- 
questionably the view taken by Elizabeth and by Haw- 
kins — the confiscation of the hides had been perfectly 
unjustifiable, and savoured more of piracy than anything 
that the captain himself had done. 

So, in the second expedition, in addition to lending 
her great ship, the Queen took shares ; other adventurers 
were the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Leicester, and 
all the members of the Council except Cecil, whose dis- 
taste for the work persisted. Hawkins was instructed 
in general terms that no wrong must be done to the 
King of Spain ; the particular application of the word 
to his measures was left to his own defining. Four ships 
were fitted out and assembled in Plymouth harbour. 
They were the Jesus of Lubek ; the Solomon, of 140 
tons ; the Tiger, of 50 tons ; and the Swallow, of 30 
tons. 

All being ready, Hawkins took leave of his wife and 
his little boy, and on October i8th went on board the 
] csiis and set sail for the Canaries. The programme 
was to be much the same as that of the first voyage, but 
everything was contrived upon a larger scale. He had 
more ships and greater carrying capacity, and a hundred 
fighting men in case of need. It is here that we first 



THE SECOND VOYAGE. 57 

meet with Hawkins in the capacity of a mihtary sea- 
man ; throughout the adventure he proved himself a 
born strategist, as well as a rough-and-ready diplomatist 
and a skilled leader. He had with him John Chester, 
son of Sir William Chester, Anthony Parkhurst, Thomas 
Woorley, and WilHam Lacie, among other gentlemen 
in search of adventure and fortune. 

A valuable log of the voyage was written by John 
Sparke, the younger, who sailed with Hawkins, and was 
a fellow-townsman ; he afterwards became Mayor of 
Plymouth. This may be read in detail in Hakluyt, and 
it will be found a very illuminating document, exag- 
gerating nothing and extenuating nothing. It is par- 
ticularly illustrative of the sentiments of the English 
world of that day with regard to the slaving trade. 
Here was Sparke, a thorough Puritan, of a Protestant 
family, whose tendencies were rather strait-laced than 
otherwise ; and he saw nothing amiss in Hawkins's 
trafficking. In his view the negroes were taken from 
Africa for their own good and exported to the Western 
Islands for the good of the Indians, while Philip was 
duped for the good of the Protestant cause — a very 
meritorious concatenation. Sparke does not express 
these sentiments in these words or anything like 
them ; but they are plain to be read between his 
vivid lines. 

Shortly after leaving Plymouth, Hawkins fell in with 
the Minion, another ship of the Queen's Majesty, and 



58 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

the John Baptist of London, bound in company to the 
Guinea Coast on the slaving business. We shall hear 
more of them hereafter. They kept company at in- 
tervals during the voyage to the Canaries. Tempes- 
tuous weather and contrary winds being encountered off 
Finisterre, Hawkins put into Ferrol on the 25th, and 
remained there till the 30th, being rejoined in the port 
by the Minion, which had been separated from him in 
the storm. It was while at Ferrol that Hawkins issued 
his much-quoted sailing orders to his squadron. They 
were these (the spelling is modernised) : — 

" The small ships to be always ahead and aweather of the 
Jesus ; and to speak, twice a day, with the Jesus at least. 

"If in the day, the ensign to be over the poop of the 
Jesus; or in the night, two lights: then shall all the ships 
speak with her. 

" If there be three lights aboard the Jesus, then doth she 
cast about. 

"If the weather be extreme, that the small ships cannot 
keep company with the Jesus, then all to keep company with 
the Solomon ; and forthwith to repair to the island of Tener- 
iffe, to the northward of the road of Sirroes. 

" If any happen to any misfortune ; then to shew two lights 
and to shoot off a piece of ordnance. 

" If any lose company, and come in sight again ; to make 
three yaws and strike the mizzen three times. 

" Serve God daily ; love one another ; preserve your vic- 
tuals ; beware of fire, and keep good company." 

There is a ring of Thorough about these sentences. 
The last is peculiarly fine in expression, and, as was 
suggested before, makes no bad rule of conduct, taken 



THE SECOND VOYAGE. 59 

in its modern significance. " Keep good company," of 
course, means that the ships were to sail in consort so 
far as possible. 

Without noteworthy adventure they arrived at 
Teneriffe. At the port of Adecia he went ashore in a 
pinnace, but found himself the subject of a hostile de- 
monstration by some fourscore men, armed with arque- 
buses, halberts, pikes, and swords. Apparently, they 
were unaware of the identity of the expedition. As soon 
as he saw what the situation was, Hawkins got his boat 
out of range of the fire-arms, and announced himself, 
saying that his business was with the Governor, Peter 
de Ponte. De Ponte was at Santa Cruz, but his son 
Nicholas was among the officers on shore at Adecia, 
and at Hawkins's request he ordered the soldiers to 
retire. The captain then landed and made known the 
wants of his squadron. The preliminary difficulties over, 

the old friendly relations were re-established. Hawkins 
got his fleet victualled, and trimmed the mainmast of 
the Jesus, which had been sprung during the gales. As 
soon as de Ponte heard that Hawkins was at the island, 
he journeyed from Santa Cruz to greet him, " and gave 
him as gentle entertainment as if he had been his own 
brother." A week thus passed, and on the night of 
November 15th Hawkins gave his adios to de Ponte 
and the islanders, and set sail for the Guinea Coast and 
his ^egro hunting. 

There was one incident on the way in which his 



6o A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

seamanlike skill and promptitude were displayed. Five 
days out from Teneriffe, the Jesus s pinnace, sailing be- 
side the big ship, with two men on board, was through 
carelessness capsized. There was a brisk breeze, and the 
Jesus was far away to leeward and the boat out of sight 
before the ship could be put about. It was Hawkins 
himself who marked by the sun the spot where the 
accident had occurred, and he who directed the course 
of the rescuers in the " great boat," manned by two 
dozen of the strongest oarsmen in the crew. In the cir- 
cumstances nobody expected to see the two unhappy 
wights again, but they were discovered sitting on the 
keel of the overset boat and brought on board, while 
the pinnace was recovered. Having saved their lives, 
Hawkins probably quarter-decked them and rated them 
soundly for their stupidity: he had a rough tongue for 
anything like incompetence and folly. 

They touched at Cape Blanco and at Cape Verde ; 
and at the latter place took off a shipwrecked French- 
man who had been livmg for some time with the blacks. 
Hawkins had thought to obtain a part of his living 
cargo there, but Cape Verde was drawn blank. It has 
been mentioned that the Minion and the John Baptist 
were bound to the African coast on the same errand 
as the Jesus and her consorts. Leaving Teneriffe before 
them, the Minion s men had forestalled them at Cape 
Verde, and they found the birds too wild. Leaving on 
December 7th, they made for Jeba, stopping by the way 



THE SECOND VOYAGE. 6i 

at Alcantraz Island, a place inhabited only by sea-birds. 
The two big ships rode at anchor here while the Tiger 
and the Swallow were sent to an adjoining island, La 
Formio, where eighty men of arms were landed and pur- 
sued a number of negroes of the tribe named by them 
Sapies. The blacks showed fight, and being unac- 
quainted with the effect of firearms, showed no alarm 
at the discharge of the arquebuses till one of their 
number received a shot in his thigh. There were no 
signs of large settlements, and Hawkins, seeing that 
he could not hope to get any number of slaves there, 
left. He also abandoned the intention of going into 
Jeba, because he found so many shoals on the coast and 
was afraid of getting his two big ships stuck aground. 

The first haul of hegro flesh and blood was there- 
fore made on the island of Sambula. Here they found 
orderly villages and well-tilled lands, but the native 
Sapies in a state of subjection to a cannibal tribe which 
Sparke names the " Samboses " — the original " Sam- 
boes." The latter fled at the white men's approach, and 
Hawkins conducted as many as he could get of the 
former from one condition of slavery to another. The 
boats were filled with rice, fruit, and "mill," and they 
departed on December 21st, having lost one man — a 
greedy fellow who wanted an extra share of " pompions," 
which he had found good eating, went unarmed to raid 
them, and had his throat cut by some natives in ambush 
among the trees, 



62 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

On the succeeding day Hawkins conducted an expedi- 
tion in person up a river " called Callowsa." This was 
effected by means of boating parties, the two big ships 
being left at anchor in the estuary, while the two 
smaller went up some distance to serve as a base for the 
boats. The result of three days' operations was " two 
caravels laden with negroes." 

Then came the assault upon the town of Bymba, the 
one misadventure of the expedition. The Portuguese 
factors on the coast had told Hawkins that the place 
would be an easy and a profitable capture. They narrated 
glowing stories of the gold it contained, and of the slaves 
that might be impressed, and of the weakness of its de- 
fences. Forty men in armour and arms were landed by 
boat, the Portuguese acting as guides. The tall tales of 
the treasure of Bymba demoralised all Hawkins's plans, 
for they induced his men to split into very small com- 
panies and thus to go raiding houses in search of gold. 
They were overwhelmed by the savages, who chased 
them down to their boats, and shot arrows at them as 
they scrambled through the shoal water or attempted to 
swim for their lives. Hawkins, at the head of a dozen 
men, had gone right through the village in good order 
in search of slaves, and now returning found all the rest 
of his party routed, a couple of hundred yelling natives 
on the shore, and the boats' crews in pretty plight, many 
of them wounded, drowning, or suffocated in the mud. 
He gave fight and forced his wav to the boats, and so 



THE SECOND VOYAGE. 63 

got clear of the pestilential place. The casualties among 
the English were seven killed, including Field, captain 
of the Solomon, and twenty-seven wounded. All they 
got for their pains was the addition of ten negroes to 
their tale of slaves. Here is Sparke's picture of Hawkins 
in the moment of adversity: — 

"The Captain, in a singular wise manner, carried him- 
self, with countenance very cheerful outwardly, as though he 
did little weigh the death of his men, nor yet the hurt of the 
rest (although his heart was inwardly broken in pieces for it) : 
done to this end, that the Portuguese being with him, should 
not presume to resist against him, nor take occasion to put 
him to further displeasure or hindrance for the death of our 
men." 

Cool, calculating, apparently dispassionate as ever, 
Hawkins was deeply grieved by the punishment of his 
comrades ; but he allowed nothing to interfere with 
his aims, and he was as wary after a bad buffet in a 
savage country as he was in a counting-house deal at 
home in Plymouth. 

They left, on December 30th, for Taggarin, and on 
New Year's Day of 1565 the two small ships and the 
boats parted company with the J esus and the Solomon^ 
and went negro-hunting up the river Casseroes. They 
were away five days, " trafficking," and must have made 
a large number of captures and purchases, for, with just 
one further trip by the Swallow alone, the business on 
the Guinea Coast was completed. The climate of Sierra 
Leone was deadly to white men, or Hawkins would have 



64 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

taken greater store of slaves to the West Indies this 
second voyage. The Portuguese had informed him of a 
forthcoming battle between the tribes of Sierra Leone 
and Taggarin, and he would have waited for it, follow- 
ing the now usual course of purchasing from the victor 
his prisoners of war at a cheap rate, but for the deaths 
and sickness which were reducing his men, " which came 
by the contagiousness of the place, which made us to 
make hast away." 

Haste they did, at the best pace the flotilla could 
achieve, westward to the Indies, setting sail on the night 
of January i8th. They just escaped an ambush pre- 
pared for them by the King of Sierra Leone, who missed 
his chance of seeing " what kind of people we were " 
by delaying the arrival of his army for a single day. If 
it had appeared at night when the men of the expedi- 
tion were all busy filling water in preparation for the 
voyage across the Atlantic, there might have been 
another story to write. But, as the chronicler of this 
piratical, slave-raiding, buccaneering company said with 
all sincerity, " God, who worketh all things for the best, 
would not have it so, and by Him we escaped without 
danger. His name be praysed for it." 

" Almightie God, who never suffereth His elect to 
perish ! "... So Sparke exclaims a little later, in 
describing the terrible twenty-eight days during which 
the four ships, with their great company of sailors, sol- 
diers, and slaves, were becalmed in the Atlantic. Quaint 



THE SECOND VOYAGE. 65 

evidence of the perfect faith they had in the morality 
and righteousness of their business, horrible as its details 
are. The calm was only varied by brief fierce storms 
of contrary wind till February 1 6th, when " Almightie 
God. . . sent vs the ordinary brise, which is 
the Northwest winde, which never left vs till wee 
came to an Island of the Canybals, called Do- 
minica." 

It was on March glh that Hawkins made signal to 
his little fleet to heave-to off the Dominican coast, and 
from that time till May 3 1 st he was busily engaged upon 
his mission of getting even with King Philip for the 
trick played upon him at the end of his first voyage. 
He knew that the task he had taken in hand was both 
difficult and dangerous ; but he had omitted no neces- 
sary thing by way of preparation for all possible emer- 
gencies. He was prepared with his story to explain his 
presence in those waters. He was prepared with goods 
to sell which the Spaniards wanted to buy. If any 
official punctilios stood in the way of his trade, he was 
prepared with ample force to back up what he conceived 
to be his right to trade. Above all he was prepared with 
his own inimitable sang-froid and adroitness. John 
Hawkins's nerve never deserted him. He could always 
preserve his British stolidity, whatever the situation, 
however delicate, however perilous ; and his subordinate 
officers and his men had perfect faith in his abihty to 
deal with every problem that arose, and to get them 



66 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

out of every hole into which they tumbled. He set 
forthwith about the business of disposing of the 400 
negroes he had with him, and never relaxed his effort 
till they were all on shore and paid for in various parts 
of the West Indies. 

The great trouble of the prolonged voyage 
across the Atlantic had been shortness of water, 
and Hawkins only delayed long enough at in- 
hospitable Dominica to obtain water for the 
slaves. They lay off shore one night, and the 
next day set sail to the south-east. The principal 
settlement and the biggest market at that time in the 
West Indies was Hispaniola ; but to have gone there 
after what happened in 1562 would have been to put 
his head into the lion's mouth. Hawkins hoped to cir- 
cumvent King Philip by going to the more remote parts 
of his Western possessions and dealing with men who 
might know less of him in places where his armada 
would be more formidable than in the great island of 
Santo Domingo. Therefore he made for the Spanish 
Main — the northern mainland of the South American 
continent, the shores of what is now Venezuela. He 
touched first at the island of Margarita, where he found 
the few Spanish settlers very willing to entertain him 
hospitably enough and victual his ships, but unwilling 
to hear of trading with him. The Governor of the island 
was decidedly hostile, and set about harassing Hawkins 
by every measure he could devise. Not only did he 



THE SECOND VOYAGE. 67 

forbid a pilot whom Hawkins had engaged to go with 
him along the coast, but he took steps to acquaint 
greater authorities than himself with the- fact that the 
dreadful " Achines " was on the coast. He sent a caravel 
express across the Caribbean Sea to Santo Domingo to 
inform the Viceroy of the Spanish Indies. The Viceroy 
had already warned the settlers on the Main against 
trafficking with any foreigners who might attempt to 
violate the Spanish monopoly. He now redoubled the 
emphasis of the prohibition. 

But this is anticipating events. Margarita was drawn 
blank. The Governor was able to put a check on any 
desire that the settlers might have entertained to trade 
with Hawkins. But the Englishman's display of force 
had an ominous look ; there was no doubt that with the 
ships and men at his disposal he might have imposed 
his will on Margarita and anticipated some of the later 
exploits of his kinsman Drake. The Governor evidently 
feared that where complaisance failed him Hawkins 
might try coercion ; and he therefore commanded the 
withdrawal of all the inhabitants from the town, and 
assembled them on the hills behind, where the adven- 
turers could have them at no advantage, if indeed force 
were to be used. The captain, however, had no idea 
of using force in such a case. He saw that in any event 
there would be little chance of profitable trade in the 
island, and he wanted to get on with his work before 
the narrow seas became too hot to hold him. He went 



68 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

his way. He slipped across to the Main, and two days' 
sailing brought him to Cumana. 

Hawkins himself went ashore in his pinnace to sound 
the settlers as to the prospects of business. They ap- 
peared to be soldiers newly arrived in that region, and 
declared that they could not raise enough capital among 
them to invest in a smgle negro. They were, however, 
able to show him a convenient place for watering his 
ships, at Santa Fe, a couple of leagues away, where the 
" Indians " came down to the shore and traded with the 
newcomers, bringing cakes made of maize — a novelty to 
their eyes — poultry, potatoes, also new, " the most deli- 
cate roots that may be eaten, and do far exceed our 
parsnips or carrots," and pines. Beads, pewter whistles, 
glasses, and knives were the articles bartered for these 
welcome provisions. They departed from Cumana on 
March 28th, and coasted eastward for three days, keep- 
ing well inshore. Hawkins himself generally sailed in his 
pinnace close to the land to spy it out. " Burboroata " 
was the next place at which they called. It was prob- 
ably at La Guayra, or near it. Hawkins anchored his 
ships off the town and went on shore to speajsi with the 
authorities. The colloquy was a long and interesting 
one. 



CHAPTER VI. 

ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

Things to be borne in Mind in judging Hawkins — At Burboroata— 
He demands a Licence to Trade — A False Pretence — A Show 
of Force — Traffic begins — The Viceroy interposes — Hawkins in- 
sists, and carries his Point. 

In the story of Hawkins's dealings with the Spaniards 
on the Main, there is much that may seem unmoral and 
impossible of approval. To modern sense, the way m 
which he contrived to get rid of his blacks and com- 
pensate himself for the misadventure of the previous 
voyage is thoroughly objectionable. This is no attempt 
to canonise Hawkins, but some circumstances must be 
constantly kept in mmd. First, the age had no humani- 
tarian ideas about slave-trading. Next, the English 
were determined to maintain the franchise of the seas 
and the right to trade. They did not contest the right 
of sovereigns to levy import duties on goods landed 
in their dominions by foreign ships ; but they did 
contest the right of sovereigns to close whole seas 
to trade. Again, the lively sense of injustice and 
injury under which Hawkins was suffering must be 

remembered, 

69 



;o A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

He insisted on trading. He would trade as a plain 
Englishman who had commodities for sale to any who 
wanted to buy. He would on his part provide excuses 
for his appearance m their ports if excuses were re- 
quired, and reasons why he must require them to pur- 
chase his cargoes in order that he might replenish his 
exchequer and his storeroom — reasons which they could 
pass on for him to any authority that might manifest an 
inconvenient tendency to ask questions. Or he would 
land men and guns and threaten dire things if they 
still refused. But he would trade. He knew that at 
the back of him— behind the guns of the Jesus of Lubek 
and the soldiers she carried — was the power of England. 
He had declared a private war against King Philip ; but 
in that private war he had the sympathy and covert 
assistance of Queen Elizabeth. 

The Spaniards found Hawkins the most troublesome, 
most persistent Englishman that had ever crossed their 
path. He was a man of slow speech, but not to be 
denied. He was a man of slow anger, but terrible in 
his wrath — the more terrible because its manifestations 
were so calculated and orderly. 

The pourparlers with the residents at Burboroata, 
and with the Governor whom they brought from a dis- 
tance to their assistance in the matter, provide a fair 
example of his methods, and of the way in which he 
proceeded from fair words to force, and finally carried 
his point. Going ashore to them on his arrival, he 



ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 71 

bluntly declared that he was an Englishman who had 
come there to do business. He had some four hundred 
negroes to sell, and he required a licence to trade. They 
replied that they were forbidden by the King to traffic 
with any foreign nation, on penalty of forfeiting their 
goods, and they requested that he should not molest 
them further, but " depart as he came ; for other com- 
fort he might not look at their hands, because they were 
subjects, and might not go beyond the law." 

Imagine John Hawkins's look-out to the bay where 
the Jesus of Lubek and her consorts lay at anchor. They 
had sailed from Plymouth exactly seven months before ; 
they had experienced many adventures and endured 
much hardship ; as yet they had done practically no 
business. And these Spaniards, who wanted his goods, 
talked to him of laws ! See his brows contract a little, 
and his lips tighten under his beard, as he witnesses the 
failure of his first overture, and prepares to open the 
second 

They talked of law ; he answered that necessity 
knoweth no law ; his necessity was to trade. " For being 
in one of the Queen of England's Armados, and having 
many soldiers in them, he had need of some refreshing 
for them, and of victuals, and of money also : without 
the which he could not depart."* He told them that he 
had no ulterior motives ; he wanted to trade, not to get 
them into trouble with their rulers. And why should 

* Sparke's Narrative. 



72 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

any trouble be anticipated? He was sailing under the 
flag of England, and was content to be open and above- 
board ; he would do nothing to dishonour his sovereign 
and his own reputation. What he asked them to do was 
to supply for themselves an admitted want, in a trans- 
action which would redound to their profit as well as 
his own. As for the prohibition, it must surely be a 
mistake so far as he was concerned, and they might deal 
with him without danger, " because their Princes were 
in amity one with another, and for our parts we had 
free traffic in Spain and Flanders " — Philip's own domin- 
ions — " and therefore he knew no reason why he should 
not have the like in all his dominions." 

This was clever rather than ingenuous. Hawkins 
knew full well that the Spaniards wanted the blacks 
and would be eager to buy if they thought they could 
do so without risk to themselves ; but he knew of the 
embargo that had been placed against him, and knew 
that they knew it. They declined to listen to the voice 
of the tempter ; at least they would have nothing to do 
with him on their own responsibility. They invited him 
to bring his ships from the bay into the harbour and 
wait for ten days while they communicated with the 
Governor of the Province, who resided at sixty leagues' 
distance. To bring the business to this point had taken 
four days. Hawkins fetched his ships inside and re- 
victualled. But he had no intention of waiting ten days 
there, with his slaves and his men eating their heads 



ON THE SPANISH MAIN. ^^ 

off in idleness, on the off-chance of an answer from the 
Governor which might be favourable or mifavourable. 
He therefore asked for permission to sell at once " cer- 
tain lean and sick negroes, which he had in his ships 
likely to die upon his hands if they were kept ten days," 
whereas they would be recovered and found fit for work 
speedily enough if they could be brought on shore. 
This request, he said further, he was forced to make be- 
cause without the value of the slaves he could not pay 
for his provisions. 

The officers and the townsmen consulted upon this 
proposal. They were all itching to do the business if 
by any means they might get to windward of the authori- 
ties. They decided to accept. There was some delay 
in the consummation of the bargain ; the Spaniards 
naturally wanted to beat down the price, and imagined 
that the longer they kept Hawkins about, the lower 
would be the figure at which he would finally sell. They 
never misjudged a man more completely. At once he 
took the high hand, and threatened to cast the dust of 
Burboroata off his feet, taking his blacks with him. This 
did not suit their book. They were at deadly enmity 
with the Caribs of the district, they were short of 
labour, and Hawkins's blacks were much too precious 
to be allowed to depart. A few were bought imme- 
diately. The haggling went on again, and was con- 
tinued till April 14th, when the Governor appeared upon 
the scene. 



74 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

To him, Hawkins made formal petition. He declared 
that "he was come thither in a ship of the Queen's 
Majesty of England, being bound to Guinea ; and 
thither driven by wind and weather ; so that being come 
thither, he had need of sundry necessaries for the repara- 
tion of the said Navy, and also great need of money for 
the payment of his soldiers, unto whom he had promised 
payment ; and therefore, although he would, yet they 
would not depart without it. And for that purpose, he 
requested licence for the sale of certain of his Negroes ; 
declaring that though they were forbidden to traffic 
with strangers : yet for that there was great amity be- 
tween their Princes, and that the thing pertained to our 
Queen's Highness ; he thought he might do their Prince 
a great service, and that it would be well taken at his 
hands, to do it in this cause." 

It was a glaring false pretence, fully understood on 
both sides, designed merely to give the Spanish authori- 
ties an excuse for presentation to their own conscience 
and to their superiors. Hawkins got his way. Sitting 
in Council, the Governor heard the petition and granted 
the licence. There was another dispute about the King's 
custom. The duty was 30 ducats on each slave— i^8 5s. 
of the money of that day, and nearer £^0 value of our 
own. Hawkins saw that the buyers at Burboroata were 
not going to approach the price he wanted for the slaves, 
and that, if he had to pay this heavy duty, his own 
profits would be a vanishing quantity. Time was slip- 



ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 75 

ping on. He had now exhausted every device but one : 
he had recourse to that. 

"He prepared 100 men, well-armed with bows, 
arrows, harquebuses, and pikes ; with the which he 
marched to the townards." This was his first armed 
measure against the Spaniards. The show of hostility 
set up a panic. The Governor sent him a messenger, 
" straight, with all expedition," to ask him to state his 
demands, and to march no further until he had received 
the answer. Hawkins said the duty must be reduced to 
/i per cent., which was the ordinary custom for wares 
imported into the West Indies, and not a stiver more 
would he pay. Further, if they refused to make the 
abatement, " he would displease them." 

It was enough. They had no great wish to be " dis- 
pleased " after the manner which they knew Hawkins 
might be expected to adopt, and the Governor sent him 
word that " all things should be to his content." Host- 
ages were demanded for the performance of the 
Spaniards' promises, and sent. The traffic in slaves 
commenced. The poorer settlers having bought all they 
could afford, the richer sort came down to haggle further 
about the price. Once more Hawkins had to threaten 
that he would take his goods elsewhere ; once more the 
threat was successful. By May 4th they had exhausted 
the market and had done very well indeed in it. 

While they v/ere at Burboroata they received further 
news of the Minion, of which we last heard on the 



7^ A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Guinea coast. A French captain, Bontemps, of The 
Green Dragon, of Havre, arrived in the harbour telhng 
a moving story of hot encounter with the Portuguese on 
that coast, of being driven off with only half a cargo of 
blacks. He was able to inform them that the Minion 
had been in a like strait. Her captain, David Carlet, a 
supercargo, and a number of seamen had been betrayed 
by the negroes and captured by the Portuguese — " which 
was most sorrowful for us to understand." 

In some sort, the people at Burboroata had reason 
to be thankful to Hawkins for his threats of force. He 
had so effectually awakened their defences that they 
were fortuitously ready for a sudden attack made by 
the Caribs on the town on the night of May 3rd, and 
were able to beat off the enemy with loss. On his de- 
parture, the Captain made for Curasao, and traded most 
profitably for hides, the principal product of the island. 
Since the occupation of Curagao by the Spaniards forty 
years before, the cattle introduced from Europe had 
thriven and increased so remarkably that the beasts 
were now killed merely for their skins. The tongue of 
an ox was cut out, and the rest of the carcase left to 
the birds. In nine days Hawkins had invested to good 
advantage in hides the money obtained for his negroes 
at Burboroata, and left. He coasted eastwards along the 
Main again, sailing inshore in the pinnace himself as 
of old, rounded Cape de la Vela, and on May 19th 
arrived at Rio de la Hacha. 



ON THE SPANISH MAIN. ^^ 

By this time the caravel despatched from Margarita 
had arrived at Santo Domingo, the Viceroy had raged 
furiously when he learnt that " Achines " was upon his 
coasts, and had sent an express commission to La Hacha, 
La Vela, and other places, forbidding the King's sub- 
jects to have any dealings with the English marauder. 
Hawkins learnt this the first day he went on shore to 
" have talk with the King's Treasurer of the Indies, 
resident there." But he had foreseen the circumstance, 
and divined the course of events that vv^ould follow. He 
was not to be disturbed either by the prohibitions or 
by the threats of the Spaniards. He had some negroes 
left ; the settlers wanted to buy them. Viceroy and 
Council notwithstandmg, he meant to conclude his trad- 
ing at Rio de la Hacha. The Treasurer told him that 
they durst not traffic with him, for, if they did, " they 
should lose all that they did traffick for, besides their 
bodies, at the magistrate's commandment." 

Hawkins smiled at their fears, knew how much they 
counted for, and quietly advanced the old story. " He 
was in an Armado of the Queen's Majesty of England," 
and on the affairs of the Queen. He had been driven 
out of his course by contrary winds, and he had hoped in 
these parts to find the same friendly relations existing 
between honest traders of England and Spain as in 
Spain itself. J'here was no reason that he knew of why 
this should not be so, for perfect amity reigned between 
King Philip and Queen Elizabeth. Thus he preferred 



78 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

his request to be allowed to trade ; if it were not granted, 
he would see whether he could not argue more forcibly, 
employing falcons, arquebuses, bows, and pikes, instead 
of words. He " willed them to determine either to give 
him Hcence to trade, or else stand to their own arms ! " 
Experience had taught Hawkins that a lot of argument 
was nothing but waste of time. The Spaniards wanted 
his slaves, and the cause of their apparent reluctance 
to buy was not any fears of the thunders of the Viceroy 
or the distant displeasure of the Monarch ; they believed 
that by making it as difficult as possible for him to sell 
they would get a reduction in price corresponding to 
the size of the obstacles they placed in his way. But 
they could not carry out this programme twice with 
Hawkins. Upon the first sign of prevarication he threat- 
ened to retaliate with cannon-balls. 

The result demonstrated his prescience and the per- 
spicacity of his judgment. At the first suggestion of 
force, the opposition collapsed partly: they would give 
him licence to trade if he would reduce the price of his 
slaves by half. " If it liked him not," they said, " he 
might do what he would, for they were determined not 
to deal otherwise with him." There was a saturnine 
humour in Hawkins's response to this piece of bluff. 
" You deal too rigorously with me," said he, in effect, 
to go about to cut my throat in the price of my com- 
modities, which are so reasonably priced that you cannot 
get them as cheap from any other trader. But, seeing 



ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 79 

that you've sent me this for supper, Senor Treasurer — 
I'll see what I can bring you for breakfast."* 

There was some stn- the next morning on board the 
] esus of Lubek, lying off the town. The men had been 
entertaining themselves during the parley by watching 
the crocodiles about the ship. They saw many, " of 
sundry bignesses," travelling so far seaward because the 
volume of river water was so great that " the salt water 
was made fresh." One of their negroes, filling water, 
was carried off. But this morning, instead of watching 
the amphibians and speculating on the origin of th? 
phrase lachrymc2 crocodili (as Sparke does very enter- 
tainingly), they had bigger business to do. It was 
May 2 1 St. Soon after sunrise there was a puff of white 
smoke from the side of the flagship, and the hoarse 
voice of a whole-culverin awakened the town of Rio 
de la Hacha. Hawkms had a firm belief in the value 
of a demonstration of energy. He did not want a san- 
guinary encounter with the Spaniards ; the best way to 
carry his point without it was, he thought, to advertise 
a bloodthirsty intention as loudly as possible. He got 
ready his hundred men in armour, and presently a little 
flotilla of boats left for the shore. Hawkins led in the 
great boat, with two brass falcons in her bows. The 
other boats were armed with double-bases. 

The King's Treasurer of the Indies and his people 
did not mean to fight ; but for the honour of their boasts 
* See Sparke's account of the negotiations, 



8o A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

and for the sake of appearances they made a good show 
of opposition. The Treasurer collected 150 footmen 
and 30 horsemen, with drums and colours, and marched 
towards the landing place — it was a sandy beach — with 
every possible demonstration of defiance. They shouted 
war at the oncoming boats, and waved their flags and 
their weapons in invitation to the Englishmen to mortal 
combat. Hawkins knew how to dissipate their martial 
ardour. At a word from him the gunners trained the two 
brass falcons on them and fired. They afterwards de- 
clared their astonishment at the presence of pieces so 
large in a boat. The immediate effect of the fire was, 
Sparke says, that " at every shot they fell flat to the 
ground ; and as we approached near unto them, they 
broke their array, and dispersed themselves so much for 
fear of the ordnance, that at last they all went away 
without their ensign." The horsemen, finely capari- 
soned, with white leather shields and javelins, made a 
brave display, and caracoled up and down the sands until 
the boats' noses grounded — when they also retired, and 
the landing was accomplished. 

Hawkins went quietly on with his plans, knowing full 
surely that he had only to persevere with the attack in 
order to secure all he wanted, and that any show of 
pusillanimity would be fatal. He drew up his force on 
the beach, and marched towards the town. The ex- 
pected result followed immediately in the shape of a 
messenger with a flag of truce. "The Treasurer mar- 



ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 8i 

veiled," said the messenger, " what he meant to do, to 
come ashore in that order, seeing they had granted every 
reasonable demand he had made." Hawkins took no 
notice. This was not to the point, and he marched for- 
ward. The messenger then begged him to halt his 
men and come forward alone to speak with the 
Treasurer. This Hawkins agreed to do. 

Midway between the two forces the parley was held. 
Hawkins clad in armour, went without any weapon, and 
of course on foot. The Spanish officer was armed cap-a- 
pie, and on horseback. Thus they " communed together." 
It issued thus — that all Hawkins's requests were con- 
ceded, and we hear nothing more about half-price for 
his goods. Gages were obtained for the performance of 
the promises made by the Spaniards. Then everything 
was peaceful for several days. Hawkins had got rid of 
all his negroes, and was trying to induce the Treasurer 
to pay a debt left by the Governor of Burboroata upon 
some of the slaves purchased there. Negotiations on 
this point were proceeding when the whisper of treach- 
ery rose. A captain and a file of soldiers arrived at Rio 
de la Hacha from some neighbouring place. Hawkins 
suspected an unfriendly act, immediately broke off all 
business, and went aboard his ships. When he came 
ashore again next morning, it was in force, falcons in his 
boats, and men fully armed. Once more his demonstra- 
tion of an intention to stand no trifling was fully effec- 
tive, and he and the Treasurer parted good friends. The 



82 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Treasurer gave Hawkins a testimonial in writing of his 
good behaviour while at the port, and Hawkins saluted 
the Treasurer with a salvo from the bases in his boat. 

It would be useless to attempt to decide whether the 
Spaniards meant treachery or were merely making pre- 
parations to withstand any further demands that Haw- 
kins might impose upon them. All that is certain is that 
they reinforced their strength and got fresh guns. As 
the ships weighed, the English were surprised to hear 
the hoarse voices of four falcons set speaking from the 
town in token of farewell. However, it all ended amic- 
ably : Hawkins had done his business, he had got even 
with King Philip, and he left the Spanish Main on 
May 31st. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE RETURN TO ENGLAND. 

Exploring Strange Seas — French Hospitality on the Coast of Florida 
— Hawkins helps the French Colonists out of their Plight — 
The Floridans' Use of Tobacco — At Newfoundland — Back at 
Padstow — The Adventurers tell their Story — Hawkins lionised 
in London — King Philip's Fury — The Queen's Appreciation — 
Cecil's Disapprobation — Hawkins compels a Spanish Fleet to 
salute the English Flag in the Channel — The Spanish Ambas- 
sador's Indignation. 

By dint of persistence and resource, backed by threats 
and the determination to carry them into practice if he 
could not carry his point without them, Hawkins had 
now finished with his good friend the King's Treasurer 
of the Indies for the time being. He was to meet him 
again three years later. 

On the last day of May, 1565, then, the Jesus of 
Lubek, the Solomon, the Tiger, and the Swallow hove 
anchor out of the river mouth, and the flagship led the 
way to the north. So far as trading in blacks was con- 
cerned, the business was over; Hawkins had sold all 
his slaves. His mercantile instinct was to invest on the 
spot the money he had obtained in some product of 
which the value appreciated in Europe ; he wanted to 

83 



84 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

go to Jamaica to trade in hides, and set his course for 
Hispaniola (Santo Domingo). His intention was not to 
beard in his den the Viceroy whom he had flouted, but 
simply to feel his way westward through unaccustomed 
seas to the island of Jamaica. 

This purpose was defeated by the prevailing lack of 
information as to the set of the currents. How jealously 
the Spaniards guarded all knowledge of the navigation 
of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico in their 
effort to preserve El Dorado to themselves has already 
been stated. As a matter of fact, owing to the westerly 
stream, Hawkins, fancying that he approached His- 
paniola on the South, struck the middle of the Jamaican 
coast instead, and did not discover his mistake till it 
was too late to amend. The error was encouraged by a 
Spaniard of Jamaica whom he had on board, having 
rescued him from the negroes on the Guinea coast. This 
gentleman pretended that he knew every land-mark 
thereabout, and most effectually fogged and befooled 
the captain. Done in all innocence and good part, it 
was none the less annoying. Hawkins got so far down 
to leeward that he could not get up again without a pro- 
digious waste of time, and he abandoned the idea, be- 
moaning what he considered the loss of a good two 
thousand pounds' worth of profit if he had been able to 
call at a Jamaican port. 

Resigning himself to a compulsory sacrifice, he 
coasted the southern shore of Cuba, and unfortunately 



THE RETURN TO ENGLAND. 85 

also overshot the port of Santa Cruz, where he had 
reckoned that he might be able to make good the loss 
of the Jamaican deal. He watered at the Isle of Pines, 
doubled Cape San Antonio, the extreme western point 
of Cuba, and tacked about between its northern 
coast and the Florida Keys, intending to go into 
Havana. Once more he was misled as to its position 
— this time by a Frenchman. His chronicler Sparke 
has some contemptuous things to say of these 
" praters." 

All this time Hawkins was doing a good deal of valu- 
able work, taking soundings and noting the currents. 
On July 8th, a fair westerly wind sprang up, and he 
decided to wait about no longer, but to take advan- 
tage of the breeze and to commence the long voyage to 
Europe. They doubled Florida Reefs on July 12th, 
and so got out into the Atlantic again. Since they had 
struck the Leeward Islands at Dominica on March 9th, 
they had sailed along the Spanish Main, across the 
Caribbean Sea, through the Yucatan Straits, into the 
Gulf of Mexico and out again, traversing many seas 
that English sailors had never seen before. They mar- 
velled greatly at the extraordinary strength of the cur- 
rents prevailing in these waters. Owing to this pheno- 
menon of the Gulf of Mexico, they lost two boats on 
the very day they rounded Florida Cape — the pinnace 
of the Jesus and the Solomon's boat, which had been 
sent to one of the islands to find water. They expected 



86 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

never to pick them up again, and had resigned their 
companies to the tender mercies of the cannibals of the 
coast, unless they should haply find their way 400 miles 
north to the River of May, where there was a French 
station. On November 14th they were recovered after 
the ships had beat about several days on the off-chance 
of seeing them, the Jesus bearing a light in her top- 
gallant by night to assist the eager eyes of the lost 
mariners on that lonely sea. 

Hawkins coasted the Atlantic shore of Florida for 
120 leagues. He resumed his old practice of sailing 
inshore himself in the pinnace. The great want of the 
flotilla was water. He had heard of the French colony 
established on the coast at the mouth of the May River, 
and, believing that wherever the Frenchmen were he 
would be able to find opportunity of watering and re- 
victualling his ships, he never left searching for them, 
and sailed the pinnace into every creek till he succeeded. 
He had been told that they were to be discovered in 
about 28° N. lat., but found the river rather more than 
two degrees further north. Entering the estuary he 
saw a French ship of about 80 tons and a couple of 
pinnaces, whose officers informed him of a fort two 
leagues further up the stream, held by their captain, 
one M. Laudonniere, and a number of soldiers. Haw- 
kins took one of his small ships up, and had a far more 
hearty welcome than he expected. Indeed, Laudon- 
niere was much more rejoiced to see Hawkins than he to 



THE RETURN TO ENGLAND. %7 

see the Frenchman, keenly as he was in want of water 
and provisions. He was entertained with such hospitaHty 
as the colonists could provide, and harrowed with a sorry 
story of misery and suffering. Whatever might be 
done in later years by the French in other parts of the 
world, it was clear that they were no fit colonisers for 
Florida. 

Laudonniere and his men had been on the River of 
May fourteen months, since May of 1 564 ; on their 
arrival they were about 200 all told. They had taken 
with them little provision, and did not seem to have the 
energy or the intelligence to get a living for themselves 
out of what was certainly a rich country. As Sparke 
observed, " they were soldiers who expected to Hve by 
the sweat of other men's brows." They ate up all the 
maize they could buy from the natives, and then, in 
order to get rations of millet, they consented to serve 
in military capacity a local chief against his enemies. 
Finally, they were reduced to eating acorns. This, not- 
withstanding the fact that the river was full of fish, to 
be had for the catching, and the soil fruitful of grapes, 
corn, and roots. The English heard the story with 
amazement which something diluted their sympathy. 
Eighty of the Frenchmen had revolted some time be- 
fore, clapped Laudonniere in prison, and run off with 
one of the ships and a pinnace to go buccaneering in 
the West Indies. They had a high piratical time, loot- 
ing Spanish ships and settlements, till twenty of them 



88 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

were captured by the Spaniards and strung up by the 
neck. The other sixty returned to Florida — to be 
served in Hke manner by their incensed comrades. The 
survivors had, in the interim, been at war with the Flori- 
dans, and their numbers were sorely reduced. The few 
remaining when Hawkins arrived had about ten days' 
provisions in sight. 

" In which perplexity, our captain seeing them, 
spared them out of his ship twenty barrels of meal, and 
four pipes of beans ; with divers other victuals and 
necessaries which he might conveniently spare ; and to 
help them the better homewards, whither they were 
bound before our coming, at their request we spared 
them one of our barks of 50 tons."* 

Hawkins had first offered to transport the whole 
colony to France ; but Laudonniere did not accept this 
proposal. He was afraid that Hawkins " would attempt 
something in Florida in the name of his mistresse." Such 
was the reputation of "Achines de Plimua." The 
Englishman was therefore contented to sell Laudon- 
niere one of his smaller ships for 700 crowns, and let 
him have provisions and shoes for his barefooted com- 
pany. The Frenchman was duly grateful for this oppor- 
tune relief, and in an account of his life (Paris, 1586) he 
set forth, under the heading of " The Arrival and 
Courtesy of M. Hawkins to the Distressed Frenchmen 
in Florida," that the English seaman "gave divers 

* Sparke. 



THE RETURN TO ENGLAND. 89 

presents to the principal officers of my company accord- 
ing to their qualities : so that I may say we received as 
many courtesies of the General as it was possible to 
receive of any man living. Wherein, doubtless, he hath 
won the reputation of a good and charitable man, de- 
serving to be esteemed as much of us all as if he had 
saved all our lives." 

Sparke gives a quaint narrative of the observations 
made by Hawkins and his officers in Florida. To this 
voyage, possibly, we may attribute the introduction of 
tobacco into England. The Frenchmen at the River of 
May had been staving off the pangs of hunger by smok- 
ing the seductive weed. Sparke says : 

" The Floridans when they travel have a kind of herb 
dried, who with a cane and a earthen cup in the end, 
with fire, and the dried herbs put together, do suck 
through the cane the smoke thereof ; which smoke satis- 
fieth their hunger, and therewith they live four or five 
days without meat and drink. And this all the French- 
men used for this purpose ; yet do they hold opinion 
withal, that it causeth water and phlegm to void from 
their stomachs." 

Another visible result of this voyage is the name of 
Hawkins County on the map of Tennessee. 

The three ships now remaining left the River of 
May on the 28th of July. Contrary winds forced them 
to go northwards still, and their provisions ran very low. 
Sparke piously remarks that they would have despaired 



go A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

of ever coming home again, " had not God, of His good- 
ness, better provided for us than our deserving." This 
was by setting them on the Bank of Newfoundland, 
where they arrived on St. Bartholomew's Eve, 23rd of 
August. Cod was then obtained in some quantity, the 
ships being becalmed for a day, and more was purchased 
from a couple of French ships encountered on the 29th. 
The methods of adventurers in those latitudes were evi- 
dently not in very good odour with French mariners, 
for we are naively informed of their surprise at getting 
anything at all in payment for their fish ! 

Then, " with a good large wind," they crossed the 
Atlantic without further adventure or mishap, and 
arrived at Padstow, on the North Coast of Cornwall, on 
the 20th of September: "with a loss of twenty persons 
in all the voyage, as with great profit to the venturers 
of the said voyage, so also to the whole realm, in bring- 
ing home both gold, silver, pearls, and other jewels in 
great store." 

The " great profit " amounted to about 60 per cent, 
for which the adventurers were inclined to be very 
thankful. 

Hawkins, having brought his three ships into the 
little harbour of Padstow, immediately wrote to Queen 
Elizabeth informing her that he had made a most for- 
tunate voyage, and then hurried across Cornwall to Ply- 
mouth and home. There was a brief stay with Dame 
Katherine and his little son Richard, and a consultation 



THE RETURN TO ENGLAND. 91 

with his brother. He was soon on his way to London. 
He must have known that the voyage would greatly 
increase his popularity in the country and the esteem 
in which he was held at Court ; but the bluff seaman was 
hardly prepared for the reception that awaited him. 
In the words of Froude, he was the hero of the hour, 
" affecting the most unconscious frankness, and unable 
to conceive that he had done anything at which the 
King of Spain could take offence." He told the Queen : 
" I have always been a help to all Spaniards and Portu- 
gal that have come in my way, without any form or pre- 
judice offered by me to any of them, although many 
times in this tract they have been in my power." An 
interesting document may be found in the State papers, 
a letter signed by some of the adventurers, relating to 
the Jestis, which lay at Padstow at the time : 

"Whereas the Quene's Ma'ie did of late at the petition and 
desier of the right honorable the Erie of Pembrock and the 
Erie of Leyceter graunte vnto their honors her Ma'ie's shipp 
called the Jesus with ordinance tackle and apparell, beinge 
in sort able and meete to serve a voyage to the Costes 
of Aflfrica and America, which shipp with her ordinance 
tackle and apparell was praysed by flfoure indifferent persons 
to be worth ijm xiji' xvs. ijd. , for the answeringe whereof to 
the Quene's Ma'ie the said Erles did become bounde to her 
Highnes either to redeliver the said shipp the Jesus at Gil- 
lingham before the feast of Christmas next comynge with her 
ordnance tackle and apparell in as good and ample manner 
as the same was at the tyme of the recevinge, or els to paie 
unto her Highnes the foresaid ijm xijii xvs. ijd. at that dale. 
And now forasmuche as we do understand that the said shipp 



92 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

the Jesus is returned into this realme in savetie from the 
viadge aforesaid pretended, and presently remayneth in the 
west countrie in a harborowgh called Padstowe, from whence 
she cannot be convenyently brought abowt to Gillingham be- 
fore the springe of the next yere, and that the said Lordes are 
contented to allowe unto her Ma'^^ as well for the wearing of 
the said shipp her ordinance tackle and apparell, as also for 
the chardges which maye be sustayned for the bringinge 
abowt of the said shipp to the harborowgh of Gillingham, 
the some of V^ '' readie monney to be paid into her Highnes 
office of the Admyraltie to Beyamyn Gonson her graces 
Treasurer, which some ofVdi we her Highnes officers whose 
names are underwritten do thinke the same suificj^ent for the 
repayringe and furnyshinge of the ordinance tackle and appa- 
rell with the said shipp in as ample manner as the same was 
delivered to the said Erles. 

"Written the xxiijth of October 1565." 

The document was signed by Gonson and the 
Wynters, and by William Holstock. Apparently the 
;;^500 compensation was accepted, for we find the ] csus 
granted to Hawkins again next year. 

The story of the voyage became general currency, 

and one of its incidents — the crocodiles at Rio de la 

Hacha — is thought to have inspired Shakespeare's lines 

in " Henry VI." : 

"As the mournful crocodile 
With sorrow snares relenting passengers." 

He was received by the Queen, and dined at the Palace, 

where he met De Silva, the Spanish Ambassador. 

Hawkins maintained his show of naivete. He kept up 

the same character that he had assumed before the 

Spanish officials in the West Indies — except that he 



THE RETURN TO ENGLAND. 93 

neither threatened the Ambassador nor fired off brass 
cannon at him. He told him where he had been, and 
what business he had done, and gave him a full account 
of the expedition, albeit he did not mention the 
little display of force and expenditure of gunpowder at 
Burboroata and Rio de la Hacha. Hawkins had 
washed the smell of saltpetre off his hands long ago ; 
and what did it matter in any case, since no bones were 
broken on either side ? 

De Silva wrote an account of the affair to 
King Philip ; this was in November. " I met 
him in the Palace," said he, " and invited him to dine 
with me. He gave me a full account of his voyage, 
keeping back only the way in which he had contrived 
to trade at our ports. He assured me, on the contrary, 
that he had given the greatest satisfaction to all the 
Spaniards with whom he had had dealings, and had 
received full permission from the governors of the towns 
where he had been. The vast profits made by the 
voyage had excited other merchants to undertake 
similar expeditions. Hawkins himself is going out 
again next May, and the thing needs immediate atten- 
tion. I might tell the Queen that, by his own con- 
fession, he had traded in ports prohibited by your 
Majesty, and require her to punish him, but I must 
request your Majesty to give me full and clear instruc- 
tions what to do." * 

* Froude : " English Seamen." 



94 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

De Silva did not know what to make out of this kind 
of man. He must have known that a demand for pun- 
ishment from the Queen, who was getting her 60 per 
cent, hke the rest of the adventurers, would be absurd. 
Phihp was furious. His scornful rejection of all 
Hawkins's entreaties when Captain Winter took that 
unhappy cargo of hides into Cadiz was now being 
repaid. " Ojo ! ojo ! " he wrote in exclamation opposite 
the name of Hawkins in De Silva's letters. Not only 
the Spanish, but the Portuguese, were up in arms 
against the daring Englishman who was treading on 
their privileges. He had infringed their rights by 
raiding negroes on the Guinea Coast. The King of 
Portugal made formal protest, with as much avail as the 
King of Spain. 

There could have been no limit to Hawkins's 
private satisfaction with the trend of events. He found 
himself famous, popular, and a favourite at Court. In 
spite of all Philip's anger, if Elizabeth remonstrated with 
the Plymouth corsair at all for what he had done in the 
West Indies, she knew that he understood her motives 
and knew where her sympathies were. He had done 
a very valuable service to the English marine by show- 
ing the way to the West Indies ; if he terrorised Philip 
at the same time, Elizabeth might protest with her lips, 
but she rejoiced in her heart. And equally did every 
English Protestant rejoice. Hawkins had got even with 
Philip in the matter of the hides at Cadiz. He was very 



THE RETURN TO ENGLAND. 95 

soon to show what his temper was in some other 
matters. 

The affairs of the second voyage having been settled 
satisfactorily by the end of the year, the captain re- 
turned home to organise another. This time his boy 
Richard was between five and six years of age, be- 
ginning to take a keen interest in ships and the sea 
and maritime adventure, in the stories his mother 
and his Uncle William had to tell not only of his 
father's voyages, but of stirrmg deeds which were being 
done on their ships in all the seas. WiUiam and John 
Hawkins between them now owned a fleet of thirty 
vessels, and there was no branch of trade, there was no 
sort of enterprise current, in which they were not en- 
gaged. Just now one of their captains had got into 
trouble somehow with the Danish authorities. In Feb- 
ruary, 1566, the King of Denmark returned to John 
Hawkins a ship of his, together with the goods on 
board her, that had been " confiscated by law." There 
was much sympathy between the English port of Ply- 
mouth and the French port of La Rochelle. The 
Huguenot city armed ships for the harassing of the 
Catholic trade between Spain and Flanders ; the Devon- 
shire harbour received them with open arms, and the 
Devonshire men — chief among them William Hawkins 
—helped them to dispose of the loot. John was actively 
engaged in these operations. 

For various reasons at this busy time, the sailing of 



96 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

the expedition to the West Indies was delayed till 
October, and the pertinacity of De Silva, acting on the 
instructions of Phihp, took some effect in the interval. 
When things were almost ready, Hawkins received a 
command from the Queen forbidding him to traffic at 
places in the West where foreign trade was prohibited 
by the King of Spain. Before he should sail he was 
required to execute a bond in ^^500 not to send the 
Swallow to any port " privileged " by Philip. Hawkins 
did as he was told, deciding to bide his time ; the bond 
was signed on the 31st of October. The affair was 
likely to be too milk-and-watery for his taste, and he 
sent a deputy in charge of it, himself remaining at Ply- 
mouth. 

The incident is a strange one, in the light of what 
we know of Elizabeth's attitude towards him. Its 
explanation is to be found in the influence of Cecil. 
The saturnine Secretary of State, though in later 
years he found the fate and policy of England bound 
up with the Protestant cause, never took a personal 
part in the religious strife of the period ; and at this 
time he was strongly opposed to the illicit warfare of 
the privateers. It offended his sense of international 
justice and national interest ; and it was he who secured 
the Queen's approval of the prohibition ; it was in his 
hand that the command was sent to Hawkins at Ply- 
mouth. The captain sent the Swallow alone on a suc- 
cessful but undistinguished voyage, and himself waited 



THE RETURN TO ENGLAND. 97 

upon events. The Jesus of Liibek was brought round 
to the Devonshire port, and Hawkins became Admiral 
of the Queen's ships there, remaining in that position 
while he concocted the plans for his third and most 
famous voyage, which began in 1567. 

During this period of waiting occurred the incident, 
already related, of Hawkins's insistence upon Spanish 
respect for the Enghsh flag. The process by which the 
gunner of the Jesus of Lubek " lact " the Spanish 
admiral through and through was effective enough ; 
when the same squadron, returning from Flanders, met 
the English fleet in the Channel, sent to escort the 
Donna Anna Maria through English waters, Philip's 
ships " were constrained to vayle their flags, and to 
acknowledge that which all must do that pass through 
the English seas." The affair occasioned a great dis- 
turbance, however. In the hubbub caused by the firing 
some Protestant prisoners on the Spanish ships escaped 
and boarded the Jesus. Hawkins liberated them. When 
the news reached London, Cecil was almost as enraged 
as Philip himself might have been. He sent down a 
commissioner to examine the evidence on the spot. 
Hawkins rested secure in the knowledge that the 
Spaniards had broken the laws of the port of which he 
was Admiral, and had shown contempt for the Queen's 
Majesty. He knew that Elizabeth would uphold him, 
even against Cecil. De Silva waxed eloquent on the 
grievance : 



98 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

" Your mariners rob our subjects on the sea, trade 
where they are forbidden to go, and fire upon our ships 
in your harbours. Your preachers insult my master 
from their pulpits, and when we remonstrate we are 
answered with menaces. We have borne so far with 
their injuries, attributing them rather to temper and 
bad manners than to deliberate purpose. But, seeing 
that no redress can be had, and that the same treat- 
ment of us continues, I must consult my Sovereign's 
pleasure. For the last time, I require your Majesty to 
punish this outrage at Plymouth, and preserve the 
peace between the two realms." 

It reads very like an ultimatum ; but Philip was in 
no position then to send an ultimatum to England, 
and all the parties knew it. Hawkins went on with his 
plans, undisturbed by the inquiries of Cecil and the in- 
dignation of Philip ; and the Queen assisted him even 
more fully than in 1564. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 

Hawkins's Third Voyage — Is joined by Francis Drake — Composition 
of the Fleet — The Ships parted by a Hurricane — A Slave-hunting 
Expedition — Poisoned Barbs — Operations on the Guinea Coast — 
On the Spanish Main again — Trouble with the Spaniards at 
La Hacha. 

We now approach that third voyage of John Hawkins 
across the Western Ocean, which has been described as 
the most important expedition so far undertaken by the 
EngUsh nation beyond the coasts of Europe. " It was 
the first occasion on which EngUsh keels furrowed that 
hitherto unknown sea, the Bay of Mexico." Hawkins 
himself left a very brief narrative of an enterprise dis- 
astrous in its incidents, but full of momentous results 
for the history of the world. 

Now appeared upon the scene of strife between 
Plymouth sailors and Spaniards a figure that was to be 
the centre of many a crowded canvas in after years — 
Francis Drake. From the melancholy failure of the 
expedition, from the unspeakable treachery of San Juan 
de Ulloa, dates the implacable hatred which Drake 
bore throughout his life against the power of Philip. 



loo A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

He was now for the first time actively associated with 
his kinsman and elder, Hawkins. Born at Tavistock, 
he was a Devon man ; but his father removed eastward 
while Francis was a boy. First he became chaplain of 
the fleet at Chatham, and afterwards vicar of Upnor on 
the Medway. Young Drake was brought up in a salt 
atmosphere, and from the earliest days of recollection 
all his interests were among the sailors and the ships. 
He was the eldest of a long family, and his father was 
a poor man ; accordingly, the chance offering of an 
apprenticeship to a master-mariner of the neighbour- 
hood was eagerly accepted, and we may be sure that it 
was to the taste of the apprentice. His diligence and 
his innate skill of seamanship were remarkable ; so high 
did he mount in favour that his employer, a bachelor, 
bequeathed his ship to the boy. 

Thus at a very early age Drake was trading on his 
own account. He had already acquired money, much 
experience, and a knowledge of the Guinea Coast when 
he and Hawkins came together. Hawkins's great 
achievements and successes in opening up the West 
India trade were, of course, the theme of all sea-faring 
men ; and no less on the Medway than in the western 
ports. In 1567, when the third voyage was preparing, 
Drake was fired with emulation, and willingly seized 
the opportunity of joining Hawkins. He sold his ship, 
bought the Judith, and went round to Plymouth to take 
his place in the flotilla. Thus, under the patronage of 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. loi 

Hawkins, did Drake enter upon those larger adventures 
in distant waters which were to make him famous. 

We should not forget that in all these ventures there 
was more than one inspiration. It was not only trade 
and fortune that operated with the mariners. They 
were Protestants, and hated the system represented by 
the religion and the power of Spain ; every one of them 
took the same fierce delight as Hawkins in striking it a 
blow wherever they could. De Silva had full informa- 
tion of Hawkins's movements, and knew that this was 
the most formidable enterprise of the sort ever equipped 
in England. He warned Philip. The King of Spain 
made preparations to receive the adventurers in the 
West Indies if they should appear there, while other 
machinations were set on foot to prevent the expedition 
from starting. It appears from a letter written by 
Hawkins to the Queen a fortnight before he left that 
he had entered into an agreement with certain Portu- 
guese to assist him — probably in the business of obtain- 
ing negroes on the Guinea Coast ; but at the last 
moment they deserted him, either of their own motion 
or impelled by some extraneous influence. There was 
some talk of abandoning the expedition. Hawkins would 
not hear of it. His own words are the best evidence of 
the state of affairs. He wrote on September i6th that 
" certain Portyngales," who had made large promises 
and been well entertained at Plymouth, had that day 
fled, taking passage into France. Nevertheless, without 



102 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

their help, he thought he had sufficient force to carry 
out the project and to bring home a profit of forty 
thousand marks, " without the offence of the lest of any 
of your highnes alyes or friends." He continued : — 

"It shall be no dishonour unto your highnes that your 
owne servante and subjecte shall in such an extremitie convert 
such an enterpryse and turn it both to your highnes honor 
and to the benefit of your whole realme which I will not 
enterpryse withowt your highnes consent, but am ready to do 
what service by your Ma^ie shall be commanded ; yet to shew 
your highnes the truth I should be undone if your Ma^'e 
should staye the voyadge, whereunto I hope your highnes 
will have some regard. The voyadge I pretend is to lade 
negroes in Genoya and sell them in the west Indyes in troke 
of golde perrels and esmeraldes, whereof I dowte not but to 
bring home great abondance to the contentation of your 
highnes and to the releife of a nomber of worthy servitures 
ready nowe for this pretended voyadge which otherwise would 
shortly be dryven to great misery and reddy to commit any 
folly. Thus having advertysed your highnes the state of this 
matter do most humbly praye your highnes to signifye your 
pleasure by this bearer which I shall most willingly accom- 
plish." 

It would, of course, have been a serious loss to Hawkins 
and to those who were venturing with him if the scheme 
had been dissipated. Men had been brought from all 
parts of the country to join, and the Mayor and Com- 
monalty of Plymouth would have been faced with a 
very pretty problem if the three hundred or more 
mariners and adventurers collected there ready to sail 
had been suddenly disbanded. But there was never 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 103 

any danger ; Hawkins's " Sovereyne Ladye and Good 
Mistresse" signified her pleasure in the manner he 
desired, and the fleet sailed on October 2nd. The 
ships he had collected in Plymouth harbour were six in 
number. They were : 

The ]esus of Ltibek, the royal ship of the 
previous voyage, Hawkins's flagship, 700 tons; 
master, Robert Barret ; complement, 1 80. Her 
armament consisted of the following brass ord- 
nance : two whole culverins, two cannons, five demi- 
culverins, three sacres, and two falcons ; and the 
following iron ordnance: three demi-culverins, five 
sacres, two whole slings, ten fowlers, and thirty 
bases. For ammunition she carried fifty-four bar- 
rels of gunpowder and an equivalent supply of 
ball. 

The Minion, also a royal ship ; captain, John 
Hampton ; master, John Garret, of Hampton, a 
Plymouth captain ; Raleigh said that he was a 
seaman of " the greatest experience in England." 

The Swallow, 100 tons, one of Hawkins's own 
ships, already mentioned as having been returned 
to him by the Danish Government ; well armed. 

The Angel, 32 tons. 

The William and John; captain, Thomas 
Bolton ; master, James Raunce. 

The Judith, 50 tons ; captain, Francis Drake, 



I04 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

The first three were vessels of considerable calibre ; 
the others insignificant as a fighting force. Ill-starred 
from the first, the voyage of this armada ended in the 
lurid horror of San Juan, every awful incident of which 
the Englishmen had in their minds years afterwards 
when they harried King Philip's galleons through the 
Channel and into the North Sea. 

They set sail out of Plymouth Sound on a fine day, 
with hopes running high, and directed their course, as 
usual, for the Canary Islands. Storm took them after 
seven days at sea, forty leagues north of Cape Finis- 
terre. The hurricane lasted nearly a week, during 
which time the fleet was separated. The boats were 
washed from their decks, and the J esiis was so stricken 
that it was thought impossible she could continue the 
voyage. Hawkins had some thought of returning to 
Plymouth to refit. Indeed, he had put about and 
shaped a course for home when, on the i ith, the weather 
improved, with a fair wind. They then resumed their 
original intention of keeping rendezvous at the Canaries 
with the William and John and the Swallow, which 
had been lost sight of. At Grand Canary, Hawkins 
heard that they were at Gomera, whither he repaired, 
and watered and victualled his ships. Thence, with a 
re-constituted fleet, and everything in good order, he set 
sail for Cape Blanc, taking it out of his " certayne Por- 
tyngales " on the way by capturing a Portuguese fishing 
boat and appropriating her catch of mullet. From Cape 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 105 

Blanc they proceeded to Cape de Verde, arriving on the 
1 8th November. 

An incident had now occurred which is somewhat 
obscure. One of the best narratives of the voyage, 
affording more detail than that of Hawkins himself, is 
that of Job Hortop. It was published as a pamphlet 
in 1 591 under the title of "The Rare Travels of Job 
Hortop, an Englishman, who was not heard of, in three 
and twenty years' space. Wherein is declared the 
dangers he escaped in his Voyage to Guinea," etc., etc. 
We shall hear of him later on. Hortop gives the only 
description extant of the addition to the fleet of a ship 
which was afterwards rechristened the Grace of God, 
and took part in the great fight at San Juan. " In our 
course thither " (i.e. to Cape de Verde) " we met a 
Frenchman of Rochelle, called Captain Bland, who had 
taken a Portuguese caravel, whom our Vice-Admiral 
chased and took. Captain Drake, now Sir Francis 
Drake, was made Master and Captain of the caravel." 
Bland remained with the expedition. Likely enough, 
as he was a man from Rochelle, he was not unwilling ; 
he may even have been known to Hawkins. At any 
rate, he did good service when Hawkins was hard 
pressed at San Juan. 

At Cape de Verde the slave-hunting began. Haw- 
kins landed 150 men. They were not very successful. 
They captured a few negroes, but had stiff fighting for 
their prey with savages who used poisoned arrows. 



io6 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Hawkins himself, Captain Dudley and eight men were 
wounded in this affair by the envenomed barbs. 

"Although in the beginning " (says Sir John) "they seemed 
to be but small hurts, yet there hardly escaped any that had 
blood drawn of them, but died in strange sort, with their 
mouths shut some ten days before they died, and after their 
wounds were whole. Where I myself had one of the greatest 
wounds, yet, thanks be to God ! escaped." 

Hawkins and Dudley were the only two of the ten that 
recovered. The eight men died. One of the captured 
negroes showed the Admiral how to cure himself of the 
wound by drawing out the poison with a clove of garlic. 
Withdrawing from this inhospitable and unprofitable 
region, they passed along the coast of Guinea, sending 
boat parties up the rivers in search of blacks. They 
had many adventures in the nature of skirmishes with 
the natives and fights with wild beasts, one of their 
boats being crunched up by a hippopotamus. On Jan- 
uary 1 2th, 1568, they arrived at Sierra Leone. Up to 
that time they had taken only 150 negroes. This was 
poor business. It would not pay them to cross the 
Atlantic with such a meagre cargo, and Hawkins was 
about to depart for El Mina to trade for gold when 
his aid was sought by the representatives of one negro 
tribe at war with another. Three chiefs were besieging 
the town of Taggarin (which Hawkins had visited three 
years before) with an army reputed to number 50,000 
men. Knowing his business at the Coast, they bar- 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. lo; 

gained with him for his assistance, promising that he 
should have as many slaves as his ships could carry 
from among the prisoners of war if he would take the 
town for them. The idea was approved. The place 
was strongly fortified with palisades. At first Hawkins 
sent up only a small force under one of the captains. 
The assault failed, and the Englishmen lost six killed 
and forty wounded. The reverse stirred up the 
Admiral's fighting spirit, and he took reinforcements 
and led them himself, attacking Taggarin " by land and 
sea," the pinnaces going up the estuary and using their 
small guns. With the aid of ball and fire and sword, 
they made a breach in the palisade, charged through it, 
and occupied the town, the inhabitants taking flight. 
His negro allies did the rest. 

In this fight the English took about two hundred 
and fifty prisoners, and their friends the native chiefs 
secured some six hundred. Hawkins had been prom- 
ised that he should have the pick of the bunch, and 
that was the reason which operated with him in under- 
taking the rather distasteful and hazardous work. 
" But," as he says, " the negro (in which nation is seldom 
or never found the truth) meant nothing less." Indeed, 
on the very night succeeding the engagement the chiefs 
struck camp and disappeared, prisoners and all. The 
Enghshmen had therefore to rest contented with 
the human booty they had captured for themselves. 
Hortop throws a little light on the character of the 



io8 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

native fighting, and the tender mercy which the victor 
displayed for the vanquished ; he states that the attack- 
ing party drove 7,000 of the defenders into the sea at 
low water at a point where there was no help for them, 
and they were all drowned in the ooze. 

Hawkins gathered his men, mustered his prisoners, 
and went back to the ships. Having watered, he pro- 
ceeded to Rio Grande. In the river there the fore- 
most ships of the English fleet were challenged by the 
Portuguese, who had seven caravels. The Angel and 
the Jzidith, which had gone in with the two pinnaces, 
were found nothing loth to fight, and drove the Portu- 
guese vessels ashore, where their crews took to flight, 
carrying their negroes with them. The conflict was 
continued next day, when Drake, with Captain Dudley 
and his soldiers, landed and encountered opposition 
from the natives. The English lost one man in the 
fight, and burned the town by way of reprisal. 

At the close of the operations on this coast, Hawkins 
had collected between four and five hundred slaves, and 
decided to tarry no longer. It had not been a highly 
satisfactory voyage so far, since the early difficulties and 
the opposition of the Portuguese had occasioned much 
delay and more fighting than he wanted. Having 
watered and provided his ships with fuel, he sailed once 
more " over the ocean sea " to the Spanish Main. The 
indifferent luck with which he had met ever since" he 
left Plymouth did not improve. The voyage across the 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 109 

Atlantic was long and tedious, with contrary winds and 
storms. Leaving Rio Grande on February 3rd, he did 
not sight Dominica till March 27th — forty-five days. By 
that time they were in sore need of water and provisions, 
and, as usual, the fleet remained some time at anchor 
off the island while they replenished. Then they sailed 
to Margarita, following out very much the same pro- 
gramme as on the previous occasion. 

King Philip's proscription of all traffic with the 
Englishmen was no less severe than before ; the desire 
of the Spanish settlers to trade was no less keen, and 
the mind of Hawkins to trade with them no less deter- 
mined. Difficulties destined to end in dire disaster soon 
began to accrue. At Margarita, and again at Bur- 
boroata, they traded in spite of the authorities, and did 
very good business. They were at Burboroata two 
months. But when they reached Rio de la Hacha they 
found the situation somewhat altered during the two 
years that had elapsed since their last visit. The 
Spanish authorities were not to be bluffed or coerced 
so easily this time. Hawkins sent on the Angel and the 
Judith in front of the main body of the fleet. They 
had barely dropped anchor in front of the town before 
they received their baptism of fire. Three pieces spoke 
from a battery on shore, which " we requited with two of 
ours, and shot through the Governor's house." It was 
an inauspicious opening of business negotiations. The 
two little ships found themselves in a rather warm 



no A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

place, for Rio de la Hacha had been well armed and 
fortified since 1565 ; and they weighed and drew out of 
range. The Spaniards wasted a good deal of ammuni- 
tion in the effort to get at them, but they rode smilingly 
at anchor for five days, awaiting the coming of Hawkins 
himself. 

All the West was now alive with the portentous 
news that Achines de Plimua was among the islands 
again with a more formidable force than before. From 
Santo Domingo the Viceroy sent a dispatch-boat with 
papers for the Governor at La Hacha. This provided 
a diversion for the Angel and the Judith, which chased 
the unfortunate caravel in shore, and then fetched him 
out from under the very noses of two hundred harque- 
bussiers. Then, satisfied with their week's work, they 
dropped anchor again, and kept a look-out for the 
Admiral. 

Hawkins found the situation strained when he 
arrived, and took strong measures, which became 
stronger and stronger till, at San Juan de Ulloa, he was 
involved in war at close quarters with the whole 
strength of the Spanish fleet in those waters. 



CHAPTER IX. 
THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN (continued). 

Hawkins seizes La Hacha— The Cargo of the Jesus— The Fleet 
encounters Cyclones — In the Bay of Mexico — Putting in at San 
Juan de Ulloa — Hawl<ins's Conciliatory Policy — Arrival of the 
Spanish Fleet — Hawkins has the Whip-hand — A Treaty signed 
— The Spaniards meditate Treachery. 

So far as the actual fighting was concerned, Rio de la 
Hacha was a comparatively small affair. But it was 
a warning of what was to come. It foreshadowed the 
carnage of San Juan. At La Hacha there was no suf- 
ficient Spanish force to deal with the determined 
Englishmen, for the military material at the command 
of the Spaniards was poor stuff, the settlers were 
friendly, and the Treasurer was not averse from doing 
a little business under the rose. Still, Hawkins was a 
man of prescience, and he could not have missed the 
lesson that whenever he happened to be faced by a 
superior Spanish force he would get rough treatment. 
He would thus obviously refrain from provoking hos- 
tilities. It was, in fact, only by an accident that he was 
involved in the fight at San Juan. He had often given 
stress of weather as his excuse for appearing in places 



112 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

where King Philip did not want him ; it was stress of 
weather without the aid of any inventive excuse that 
drove him to the doom of his expedition. 

At Rio de la Hacha Hawkins learnt from his fore- 
runners in the Angel and the Judith of the posture of 
affairs. His own first attempts to open negotiations 
with the Treasurer were rudely rebuffed. Since 1565 
the place had been strengthened by the construction of 
forts in which guns were mounted, commanding all the 
sea approach. There were also the harquebussiers. 
Hawkins's old friend the Treasurer entertained the in- 
genious notion that he might carry out the Viceroy's 
orders not to trade with the Englishmen, and at the 
same time secure the coveted slaves, by forbidding him 
to land at all. Then famine of water was only a ques- 
tion of time, and the negroes would certainly fall into 
his hands. 

" Of which purpose he had not greatly failed unless 
we had by force entered the town." Hawkins used all 
the civil arguments he could, and, finding them im- 
potent, landed two hundred men. Forts, harquebus- 
siers, and all the display of force then proved unavail- 
ing. The Spaniards hardly showed fight. Hawkins 
broke through the defences with perfect ease, put the 
enemy to fligh't, and occupied the town with the loss of 
only two men, " and no hurt done to the Spaniards ; 
because after their volley of shot discharged they all 
fled." The Admiral now held the key of the situation, 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 113 

and turned it to good purpose. The Treasurer's 
" friendship " was privately secured, and as the Spanish 
settlers who were anxious to buy Hawkins's negroes 
came down to do the traffic by night, he could not be 
expected to see or know what was going on. Hawkins 
sold about two hundred slaves and disposed of other 
merchandise, so that when he was ready to leave La 
Hacha, he had nearly cleared his cargo. The landing 
was accomplished about the middle of June. At the 
beginning of July, Hawkins wished his friends 
good-bye, and weighed for Cartagena, carrying 
with him a " vast treasure " of gold, silver, and 
jewels. 

It was the custom to store all the receipts of the 
traffic on board the flagship Jesus, and it may be in- 
teresting at this point to estimate the value of her cargo. 
In the course of the inquiry held by the Admiralty into 
the affair of San Juan, evidence was given by William 
Clarke, one of the four supercargoes appointed by Sir 
William Garrard and other adventurers in the expedition 
to look after their interests. He was on board the 
William and John, which was separated from the rest 
of the fleet during a storm, and was not, therefore, 
present at San Juan. His story of the transactions, 
however, squares with that of Hawkins himself. Gold 
in bars and pieces, silver plate, and other commodities 
to the value of 29,743 pesos, or about £'11,897 of 
English money (which would now represent somewhere 



114 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

about ;^ 1 00,000) were on the Jesus after she left 
Cartagena. 

Hawkins would have traded at Cartagena, but " the 
Governor was . . . strait " in his interpretation of 
the King's prohibition. This would not have weighed 
very heavily with the Admiral but for two additional 
facts: (i) Cartagena was very strongly fortified, and he 
could not have reduced it to submission, if at all, except 
at a great cost in lives and time ; (2) the season of 
storms, " the which they call Furicanos," was approach- 
ing, and he wanted to get out of the Caribbean Sea 
before it came on. He therefore chose to consider the 
adventure closed, and departed from Cartagena on the 
24th July. He had not wasted much time there. He 
wanted provisions, and, being unable to bring the 
Governor to a reasonable frame of mind, he fired a mere 
shot or two from the Minion at the castle in order to 
cover his movements, landed a party on one of the 
islands to the south-west of the town, where they had 
" many gardens," raided a cave where certain botijos of 
wine were stored, and left in exchange a quantity of 
woollen and linen cloth. Much to the distaste of the 
Governor as these proceedings might be, they were 
probably quite to the liking of the proprietors of the 
wine, so that no great harm was done. 

His intended route from the Spanish Main to Eng- 
land was the same as in 1565. He set a course from 
Cartagena north-west to the Yucatan Channel, passing 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 115 

by the western end of Cuba, proposing to navigate the 
Straits of Florida and pass into the Atlantic. But, 
owing to the delays at Burboroata and La Hacha, he 
was too late to avoid the cyclones of August. 

"Passing by the west of Cuba, towards the coast 
of Florida, there happened to us on the 12th day of 
August an extreme storm, which continued by the space 
of four days ; which did so beat the Jesus that we cut 
down all her higher buildings ; her rudder was also 
sore shaken, and withal she was in so extreme a leak, 
that we were rather upon the point to leave her than 
to keep her any longer." 

The ships had been at sea ten months, and were not in 
the best condition for meeting a severe gale. Their bottoms 
were foul and they sailed badly. On the 15th August, 
after three days of beating about the entrance to the 
Gulf, the William and John was separated from the 
other six ships, and thought to be lost. In the event 
she escaped through the Straits of Florida, and arrived 
on the coast of Ireland in the following February. 
Hawkins was sorely beset, and, as his own narrative 
quoted above shows, strongly tempted to abandon the 
Jesus. But the great Queen's ship was valuable — ^worth 
;^5,ooo without counting any of her precious cargo — 
and a seaman of the quality of Hawkins would let no 
effort be lacking to save her. He led his storm-tossed 
fleet to the inner coast of Florida, and beat up and 
down to find some haven where they might repair the 



ii6 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

ship and succour their crews. The coast was shoal and 
perilous, no harbour was to be found, a fresh storm 
descended, and endured three days ; and in despair the 
Admiral put about and fled before it to the bottom of 
the Gulf. And this was " the first occasion on which 
EngHsh keels had furrowed the waters of the Bay of 
Mexico." He ran straight for San Juan de Ulloa, then 
the port from which the City of Mexico was served, a 
voyage of about a thousand miles from the Floridan coast. 
The amazement and wrath of the Spaniards there 
at his temerity in sailing the forbidden seas, and the 
difficulties he was likely to encounter in his endeavour 
to refit and provision, were foreseen by far-sighted 
Hawkins. On the way he met with three small Spanish 
vessels carrying passengers, took them, and carried them 
along with him ; they would give him something valu- 
able to barter with. If he could by no other means 
obtain his desires, he would hold them to ransom, and 
he did not doubt that they would greatly assist his 
argument. On one of the ships, bound for Hispaniola, 
they found a distinguished Spaniard, Augustin de Villa 
Nueva, " who," says Hortop, " was the man that betrayed 
all the noblemen in the Indies and caused them to be 
beheaded." Of this worthy, Hawkins, in pursuance of 
his policy, made a great deal, and treated him with much 
courtesy, the which was afterwards rewarded as might 
have been expected by a gentleman with such a reputa- 
tion: "he was one of them that betrayed us." 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. ii; 

Hawkins, with his five EngUsh ships, his caravel 
the Grace of God, and the three httle vessels he had 
just captured, made a brave display as he sighted the 
coast of Mexico, and felt about for the port of San 
Juan de Ulloa. It was the chief port of the great 
colony, an honour it afterwards resigned to Vera Cruz, 
only a few miles away. Indeed, the harbour of Vera 
Cruz, at the present day still the principal port of 
Mexico, is protected by a breakwater stretched between 
the island of San Juan and that of Los Sacrificios. San 
Juan had a tiny harbour, protected by a shingle bar 
forming an island across the front of a little bay nestled 
in the south-western corner of the Golfo de Campeche. 
The inside edge of the island, some half-mile long, had 
been faced with masonry, and to this quay shipping tied 
up and lay in safety from the prevailing north winds 
which constantly rolled a long line of white surf against 
the outer edge. Only one of the entrances to the bay 
was practicable for ships of anything but very shallow 
draught, and this narrow gut could be commanded by 
guns mounted on shore. If the Spaniards had chosen 
to prevent any ship from entering the harbour, it was 
the easiest thing in the world to do, and there was no 
safe riding-place outside. 

San Juan de Ulloa, then, it will be seen, was a par- 
ticularly choice spot for the English Admiral to select 
who had been fighting the Spanish authorities ever since 
he entered these seas, and was under the ban of King 



ii8 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Philip. It would have been a thousand times better 
for John Hawkins, as things turned out, if he had never 
gone near San Juan. But let us witness his arrival 
from the shore. 

There was no great Spanish force in the port ; 
twelve rich merchantmen, reported to have iJ"2oo,ooo in 
bullion on board, were there at anchor, and they were 
defended only by the guns on shore ; no ships of war 
were in harbour. The local authorities were therefore 
looking out somewhat eagerly for the fleet from Spain, 
of whose approach they had been advised. It was a 
formidable force of galleons and frigates, under the 
command of the well-known Alvarez de Ba^an, and its 
most distinguished passenger was Don Enriquez, re- 
cently appointed to supersede the Viceroy of Mexico. 
When, on September i6th, a squadron of nine ships 
appeared off the port, the local authorities were ex- 
cessively relieved. The ships entered the harbour one 
after the other, and took up their positions along the 
wall of the island, and were received with the usual 
courtesies. When the fleet was disposed, the chief 
officer of San Juan went in state to the flagship, ex- 
pecting to be received by de Bagan and to pay his duty 
to Don Enriquez. Instead, he found himself on the 
deck of the Jesus of Lubek, and was received by no less 
a personage than " Achines de Plimua," the pest of the 
Spanish Main, the corsair and enemy of the faith whom 
de Ba^an had special instructions to find and to destroy. 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 119 

"Being deceived of their expectation," they "were 
greatly dismayed." Hawkins had a terrible character 
all along the coast, and the unfortunate governor hardly 
knew what to expect. But, happily for him, Hawkins 
was not in fighting trim nor in fighting mood. He had 
been sorely battered in the storm; he merely wanted 
victuals and a quiet place in which to repair damages. 
Consequently, his friends the Spaniards were easily re- 
assured. He left nothing undone, however, that might 
conduce to his safety and prove his intention of honest 
dealing. The people at San Juan were but minor per- 
sonages, and Hawkins took steps at once to inform the 
Viceroy at Mexico of his arrival and the reason for his 
presence. His courier rode away inland the same even- 
ing, bearing word that Hawkins had been driven into his 
port by the violent weather and the necessity for repair- 
ing his ships. He pointed out that Queen Elizabeth 
was an ally of King Philip, and that arrangements 
ought to be made to prevent any rupture of friendly 
relations upon the arrival of the Spanish fleet which his 
friends at the coast informed him was daily expected. 

Once more it must be pointed out that the unofficial 
Spaniards in the colonies had no ill-feeling for Haw- 
kins, but regarded him rather as a benefactor than 
otherwise, because he brought them commodities of 
which they were in need. The hostility was purely 
official, and it did not extend even to all the officials, as 
we have seen in the case of the Treasurer at La Hacha. 



I20 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

There was a possibility, then, that the Viceroy in 
Mexico would have winked at what had happened 
before, and given Hawkins licence to repair his ships 
and clear peaceably. But the expedition had been 
dogged by ill-luck ever since it left Plymouth, and 
Nemesis did not desert h now. Hawkins was not aware 
of the fact that the Viceroy was about to be suc- 
ceeded by Don Enriquez, and that he was impotent 
to put any friendly feelings into practice. Even had 
this not been the case, Hawkins would have been no 
better off, because Nemesis closed with him before his 
courier was so much as a day's journey on the road to 
Mexico. 

The Admiral had acted with great circumspection. 
His leading idea just now was to conciliate the authori- 
ties. The treasure-ships in the harbour were a great 
temptation : he announced his intention of leaving them 
severely alone. The passengers whom he carried — the 
yield of the three caravels he had captured on his way 
through the gulf — would have been valuable as hos- 
tages ; he set them at liberty " without the taking from 
them the weight of a groat." His actual business of trad- 
ing was over : he wanted to do nothing that might be a 
cause of dispute between him and the Spaniards. 
Throughout this episode he played quite fairly: he 
was met by nothing but treachery. 

It was two hundred miles from San Juan to Mexico, 
and Hawkins's messenger could not have been far on 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 121 

the way when, the next morning-, "which was the 
seventeenth day of the same month, we saw open of the 
haven thirteen great ships." Alvarez de Bagan had 
arrived, and, lying off the port, was immensely sur- 
prised to find the harbour occupied by English vessels, 
and the masts of the J esus of Lubek towering high 
above the protecting island. It was " a little island 
of stones not three feet above the water in the highest 
place, and but a bowshot of length anyway. This is- 
land standeth from the mainland two bow-shots or 
more. Also it is to be understood that there is not in all 
this coast any other place for ships to arrive in safety, 
because the north wind hath there such violence that, 
unless the ships be very safely moored, with their an- 
chors fastened upon this island, there is no remedy for 
the north winds but death. Also, the place of the 
haven was so little that of necessity the ships must ride 
one aboard the other, so that we could not give place 
to them nor they to us." 

While de Bagan, seeing that the posture of affairs 
was difficult, anchored his fleet outside, Hawkins revolved 
in his mind the procedure he should adopt. He was 
ever prompt in action and quick to see the key of a 
situation. In this case, possession of the island was the 
master key: from it the occupant could dictate terms 
to any force, however large, desiring to enter the port. 
He first landed a number of his men there and got gims 
into position covering the only practicable channel. 



122 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Then he was ready to negotiate with de Baqan. Haw- 
kins had two alternatives. He could, if he chose, 
prevent the Spanish fleet from entering the port, which 
would have been the safer course for himself, though 
it would have been a definite act of war ; if he had pre- 
vented their ingress, they must either have departed 
to some other port or have been driven ashore and 
wrecked in the first breeze that rose. That would have 
been despoiling King Phihp of property estimated to 
be worth near two millions sterling, and Hawkins 
feared " the Queen's indignation in so weighty a mat- 
ter." He could, on the other hand, let them in, and 
chance their conduct afterwards ; the likelihood of fair 
dealing he believed to be small, but he decided to run 
the risk. " I thought it rather better to abide the jutt 
of the uncertainty than the certainty. The uncertain 
doubt, I accounted, was their treason, which by good 
policy I hoped might be prevented ; and therefore, as 
choosing the least mischief, I proceeded to conditions." 
The negotiations between the two commanders 
lasted three days. De Bagan had not long been an- 
chored when he sent in a pinnace with a flag of truce 
asking of what country those ships were that rode in 
the King of Spain's port. Hawkins replied that they 
were the, Queen of England's ships, come in there for 
victuals and necessaries for which they were able and 
willing to pay. The conversation by deputy was young 
when the English Admiral received information that 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 123 

Don Enriquez was on board, that he had authority in all 
the province of Mexico, in New Hispania, " and in the 
sea." This last was the assertion of a doctrine which 
it had been the invariable custom of Enghsh seamen 
to deny ; but since the Viceroy spoke him fair in other 
respects, Hawkins allowed it to pass. Don Enriquez 
asked him to send his conditions, " which, of his part, 
should (for the better maintenance of amity between 
the Princes) be both favourably granted and faith- 
fully performed." Much more of a complimentary kind 
was said. Don Enriquez was outside and in danger 
of being cast ashore ; Hawkins had the whip-hand of 
him while his ships were in the harbour and his guns 
were on the island. The Don was suave and polite ; 
he mentioned that passing along the coasts of the In- 
dies, he had been informed of the honest behaviour 
of the Englishmen towards the inhabitants with whom 
they had business — " the which," says Hawkins, sen- 
tentiously, " I let pass." He knew full well, remem- 
bering what had happened at Burboroata and Rio de 
la Hacha, that the Viceroy had his tongue in his cheek 
while he spoke, and was only anxious to get inside the 
harbour in safety. Hawkins proceeded to draw up 
conditions, in which the English demanded : 

"Victuals for our money, and hcence to sell 
as much wares as would furnish our wants. 

" That there might be, of either part, twelve 



124 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

gentlemen as hostages for the maintenance of 
peace. 

" That the island, for our better safety, might 
be in our possession during our abode there, and 
such ordnance as was planted in the same island, 
which were eleven pieces of brass. 

" And that no Spaniard might land in the is- 
land with any kind of weapon." 

Don Enriquez and de Ba^an remained polite ; 
but they did not hke Hawkins's demands, and, as events 
proved, had no intention of conceding them except in 
appearance. It was not, in fact, at all likely that the 
Spanish Admiral, who had instructions so rigid with 
regard to Hawkins and his company, would let him slip 
now that they were at close quarters and the Spaniards 
in overwhelming force. Some demur was made about 
the provision that the island should remain in the hands 
of the Enghsh ; but it was, as already set forth, the key 
of the situation, without which the English fleet would 
not have been worth half an hour's purchase. The 
island in their possession, it would have been the sim- 
plest thing in the world for the Spaniards to have cut 
the cables and Hawkins's ships would infallibly have 
gone ashore against the town of San Juan. At last, at 
the end of three days, Don Enriquez concluded the 
treaty, granting all Hawkins's conditions, except that 
the number of the hostages was reduced to ten on 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 125 

each side. The Viceroy signed the papers on his part, 
and sealed them with his seal ; and forthwith a trumpet 
was sounded, "with the commandment that none, of 
either part, should be means to violate the peace, on 
pain of death." Then Hawkins and de Bagan met 
with formal ceremony, and gave personal pledge of the 
performance of their promises. 

So the stately galleons and frigates of the Spanish 
fleet made an impressive procession into the little har- 
bour, amid the firing of complimentary salutes on either 
side, and a great deal of powder smoke, " as the manner 
of the sea doth require." This was at night on Mon- 
day, the 20th of September. Up to this time there had 
been no cause of complaint of any breach of the con- 
ditions, except that suspicions arose that the Spanish 
hostages were not the genuine article, but varlets 
dressed up in fine apparel to look like gentlemen. The 
tiny harbour was inconveniently crowded ; there were 
the twelve treasure-ships, the nine that Hawkins had 
brought in, and the thirteen of the Spanish fleet — alto- 
gether thirty-four sail. It took them two days to sort 
themselves out and get the two fleets moored in two 
separate bunches. While this work was a-doing, the 
officers and men on both sides fraternised freely, from 
the captains to the scullions. So passed Tuesday and 
Wednesday. 

While Hawkins was busying himself about arrange- 
ments for the repair of his ships, and while his crews 



126 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

were hobnobbing with the Spaniards of the fleet, Don 
Fnriquez, Admiral de Baqan, and the Governor of San 
Juan were ashore dehberating upon the means of scotch- 
ing, if not of kilHng, the pernicious EngHshman. They 
prepared an attack for Thursday, which was meant to 
be resistless. With a less wide-awake man than 
Hawkins, and with more pusillanimous material than 
he had at his command, their plan would have been a 
perfect success. They had gathered a thousand armed 
men at San Juan, and had completed the scheme for 
assisting their operations by the fire of their ships. 
They had their spy, Augustin de Villa Nueva, on board 
the Jesus with a knife in his sleeve. They had 300 
men on a hulk ready to board the Minion. If this 
did not succeed, it argued ill for their capacity for secret 
plotting. This was the posture of affairs when night 
closed down upon the Bay of San Juan on Wednesday. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN {concluded). 

Signs of Foul Play — The Attack sounded — The English massacred 
on Shore — Hawkins rescues the Minion — The Jesus beconmes a 
Wreck — The Cup-of-Beer Incident — Fire Ships — The Minion and 
the Judith escape — The Judith makes off — Driven ashore by 
Hunger — The Voyage Home — Taking Refuge in a Spanish Port 
— ^Hawkins's Report to Cecil. 

Though the fight at San Juan was not on the grand 

scale as sea-fights go, it was one of the most desperate 

in naval history. In some other respects it was notable. 

All the fighting was at close quarters ; the destruction 

and the carnage were great in proportion to the size 

of the forces engaged. 

When Thursday morning broke, signs of feverish 

activity were seen on shore and on board the Spanish 

ships. Guns were being shifted and trained on the 

little island, parties of men-at-arms were mustered here 

and there, and boat-loads of them were passing and 

repassing between ship and shore. These things aroused 

" a vehement suspicion." Hawkins took the bull by 

the horns. He sent a message to the Spanish flagship 

to inquire what was afoot. It proved that, though the 

great ship next the Minion had been filled with men, 

127 



128 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

though in the night a hawser had been fastened to the 
head cable of the Jesus where she rode, and there 
seemed not to be the sHghtest loophole of escape for the 
English, caught like rats in a trap, the Spaniards were 
not yet ready to strike, and the Viceroy, to disarm the 
doubts of the English, ordered the preparations to be 
masked, and sent word to Hawkins that he, on the 
faith of a Viceroy, would be their defence against all 
villainies. 

The Admiral had no particular reason for relying 
on the faith of a Viceroy. He saw this to be mere 
temporising, because it had been definitely ascertained 
that the ship next the Minion had 300 men (above and 
beyond her crew) on board. Hawkins, hoping to get 
a better explanation, sent to the flagship the Master of 
the Jesus, Robert Barret, who spoke Spanish very well. 
Barret had instructions to demand "that those men 
might be unshipped again which were in that great 
hulk." Meanwhile, Hawkins sat at table in his state- 
room with Augustin de Villa Nueva. The Admiral, 
sometimes represented as a rough and uncouth seaman, 
half pirate, kept a good table and some style. On 
ceremonial occasions he wore silks and velvets, elabor- 
ately ornamented with gold and pearls. We may 
legitimately picture him in his garb of state this fatal 
morning, for he regarded Villa Nueva as a person of 
consequence. 

The symposium was rudely disturbed by the sound 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 129 

of a trumpet and an uproar on deck. In the state 
room, one John Chamberlayne, who had been watching 
Villa Nueva, suddenly seized him by the arm, and took 
from his sleeve a dagger. Hawkins leapt to his feet, 
faced the trembling Spaniard for a moment, sternly 
commanded him to be imprisoned in the steward's room 
and guarded by two men. Then he rushed on' deck. 
All was in confusion. The trumpet note had been the 
signal for a general attack upon the English. There 
were shots and shrieks on shore, where parties of Haw- 
kins's men had been overwhelmed ; the Spanish ships 
were spitting smoke and ball from all their ports ; the 
hawser attached to the head cable of the Jestis was 
used to haul the big hulk up alongside the Minion, and 
men poured from her decks over both the Minion and 
the flagship. 

What had happened was this : when Barret went on 
board the Spanish flagship, he was invited to a confer- 
ence with the Viceroy, and had barely delivered his 
message when the Spaniards perceived that it would 
be impossible longer to conceal their intentions. 
Barret and his boat's crew were seized and put in irons, 
and the command was given for a general assault. The 
first great slaughter took place on the island. Large num- 
bers of Spaniards, armed to the teeth, scrambled ashore 
from the ships, and over-ran the place, killing right and 
left, and immediately capturing the battery of eleven 

guns which Hawkins had mounted to command the 
J 



130 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

entrance to the harbour. Not an Englishman was left 
alive on shore ; the few who survived escaped by swim- 
ming off to the Jesus. The stones of the island were 
encarmined with English blood and strewn with English 
corpses. 

When Hawkins got on deck he found his crew much 
taken aback by the suddenness of the attack. He saw 
at once that the Minion must be saved, or they would 
be undone. " God and Saint George ! " cried he. " Upon 
those traitorous villains and rescue the Minion! I 
trust in God, the day shall be ours ! " His men only 
needed a lead. With a cheer they swarmed from the 
Jesus into the Minion, and in a fierce hand-to-hand fight 
beat the Spaniards back. Many returned to the hulk, 
many were left dead upon the Englishman's decks, and 
many were driven overboard and drowned. Amid the 
storm of fire, they got the Minion's guns to work, and 
one of their first lucky shots was fired into the Spanish 
Vice-Admiral's ship and set him on fire, so that presently 
his magazine exploded. The better part of 300 men 
perished in this catastrophe. The engagement waxed 
hotter. The Spaniards concentrated most of their fire 
upon the devoted Jesus, and she lived in a rain of chain- 
shot and ball. Her mainmast was pierced in five places, 
her foremast went by the board, and her hull was 
riddled, so that she was soon reduced to a helpless 
wreck. 

After the first boarding had been repulsed, the 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 131 

Minion slipped her cable, and worked to the mouth of 
the harbour, firing as she went in answer to the guns 
on the island. The storm of iron lulled for a brief 
space, only to allow the boarding party from the big 
hulk to attack the Jesus. Again they were repulsed 
with much loss on both sides. The Jestis then followed 
the example of the Minion, and was warped round by 
her stern-fasts to the opening. But her case was hope- 
less, for she was almost unmanageable. The men con- 
tinued to work the guns, Hawkins encouraging them. 
" Our General courageously cheered up his soldiers and 
gunners, and called to Samuel, his page, for a cup of 
beer, who brought it to him in a silver cup. And he, 
drinking to all the men, willed the gunners to stand by 
their ordnance lustily, like men. He had no sooner 
set the cup out of his hand but a demi-culverin struck 
away the cup and a cooper's plane that stood by the 
mainmast, and ran out on the other side of the ship ; 
which nothing dismayed our general, for he ceased not 
to encourage us, saying, ' Fear nothing, for God, who 
hath preserved me from this shot, will also deliver us 
from these traitors and villains.' "* 

The Jjidith, Drake's little 50-ton ship, followed out, 
being less damaged than the others, and got clear of 
the guns. The Jesus, however, could not be rescued ; 
her tackle had all been destroyed by the fire. All she 
could do was to remain a target for the Spanish guns, 

* Hortop's Narration, in Hakluyt. 



132 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

and fire her own as quickly as might be. And the 
EngHsh guns were worked to some effect, for in addition 
to the destruction of the Vice-Admiral's ship, they sank 
de Bagan's flagship under him within an hour after the 
general engagement began, and three others were after- 
wards wrecked. But the odds were too great. When 
Hawkins realised that there was absolutely no possi- 
bility of saving the Jesus, he ordered the next best 
thing to be done. She was warped in front of the 
Minion, between her and the island, so as to act as a 
buffer for the fire from the battery, the intention being 
to keep up the defence till nightfall, get the treasure 
and as much of the stores out of her as could be taken, 
and slip away. 

Once more there was no luck for the Admiral. His 
purpose was defeated by means that foreshadowed a 
striking incident of a much greater fight just twenty 
years after : " As we were thus determining, and had 
placed the Minion from the shot of the land, suddenly 
the Spaniards had fired two great ships, which were 
coming directly with us." Battered for hours by heavy 
gun-fire, with their comrades lying around them dead 
and dying, this device of the enemy was too much for 
them. A similar project had been entertained by the 
Frenchman, Captain Bland, of the Grace of God. He 
had been trying to follow the other three out of the 
harbour, when his mainmast crashed overboard, severed 
by chain-shot. He dropped anchor, set the caravel on 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 133 

fire, and took his men in their pinnace on board 
the Jesus. 

Hawkins was frankly surprised to find him so 
loyal, and told him he had imagined that the Grace of 
God was attempting to escape alone. .Bland replied 
that he had not meant to run away, but to have 
laid the weathermost (which would be the nearest to 
him) of the Spanish ships aboard, fired his ship, and 
trusted to that element to win the day. Hawkins com- 
mended the plan ; but the immediate necessity was to 
escape a similar fate himself. His men were almost 
dead-beat with exhaustion. Whereas he (as he told 
the Admiralty Court) " had all that day attended to the 
defence of the Jesus, and his company by their good 
travail and manliness had stoutly stood unto the same 
defence, the sudden approaching of the fired ships made 
a great alteration of things." Some of the men were 
for an immediate escape into the Minion, which was in 
comparatively good case ; others preferred waiting to 
see whether the fire-ships would be carried away from 
them by the wind. The Minion, without orders from 
Hawkins, took the problem into its own hands, made 
sail, and began to slip away. Hawkins, with difficulty, 
jumped on board her as she left the Jesus, most of the 
men then alive in the flagship followed out in a small 
boat, " the rest, which the little boat was not able to 
receive, were enforced to abide the mercy of the 
Spaniards ; which I doubt was very little." 



134 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

The Judith was already outside ; the Minion 
dropped anchor a mile from the shore ; night came down, 
and the Battle of San Juan de Ulloa was over. It had 
been eight hours of the hottest fighting ; the number of 
Englishmen killed on the island and in the ships was 
not less than lOO, probably more ; Spanish records of 
the affair admitted 540 killed of the 1,500 men they had 
in the engagement — of whom the majority were ac- 
counted for by the blowing up of the Vice-Admiral's 
ship. 

In view of the disparity of the forces engaged, it is 
hardly short of marvellous that an English ship escaped 
at all, or that an Englishman should have been left to 
tell the tale — save to the officers of the Inquisition who 
thereafter dealt with some of the prisoners. About two 
hundred gallant, battle-weary men, many of them suf- 
fering torture from their wounds, were huddled on board 
the Minion and the Judith outside San Juan when 
night fell. In the morning, the Admiral and the ship's 
company of the Minion were amazed to find that they 
were alone ; the Judith had disappeared. The reason 
why Drake sailed away, leaving his Admiral in this 
necessity, is not quite clear. Hawkins himself com- 
plained of desertion, and thought it was a hard case. 
He writes : " So with the Minion only, and the Judith, 
a small bark of 50 tons, we escaped ; which bark, the 
same night, forsook us in our misery." But there is 
another side to the story, which shows that the ap- 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 135 

parent desertion may have been the result of a mis- 
understanding. Hortop relates that Hawkins "willed 
Master Francis Drake to come in with the Judith, and 
to lay the Minion aboard, to take in men and other 
things needful ; and to go out. And so he did." Fur- 
ther, Phillips* says of the incident, " the same night the 
said bark lost us." It was not in concert with the 
character of Francis Drake that he should desert a com- 
rade in distress, and in the absence of any other tes- 
timony it should not be assumed against him. 

As soon as the Jesus was abandoned by the Eng- 
lish, the Spaniards diverted their fireships and took 
possession of her, so that all the treasure which 
Hawkins had expected to be able to bring home to the 
Queen, Sir William Garrard, and the other adventurers, 
" forty thousand marks of gain," all his " golde, perrels, 
and esmeraldes," were fallen into the hands of the Dons. 
If de Bagan had been a seaman and a fighter of the 
calibre of Hawkins, he would have had the Admiral 
himself and the Minion as well as the treasure. The 
Spanish commander had several ships fit for action, 
while, a mile away, lay the Minion, which had been 
raked by their fire all day, and was crowded with 
refugees. But no further attempt upon her was made. 

The next morning (September 24th) Hawkins, in 
melancholy case, weighed and sailed to the protection 
of an adjacent island — probably Los Sacrificios — where, 

'^ See Hakluyt. 



136 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

at any rate, they were safe from the guns, and a good 
watch would give them timely warning of any intended 
attack. They had lost three cables and two anchors 
during the fight and the warping out, and had only 
two anchors and cables left, so that when the dreaded 
nortcs came on, there seemed no hope of anything 
but shipwreck to end their troubles. However, the 
weather rapidly improved again, and on the Saturday 
(25th) they set sail. 

Now began a sorrowful fortnight's wandering " in 
an unknown sea." The ship was crowded and ill-pro- 
visioned, for they had been able to do none of the work 
they expected to accomplish at San Juan. Nothing 
more pathetic can be imagined than Hawkins's simple 
language in description of their phght : " Our hope of 
life waxed less and less. Some desired to yield to the 
Spaniiards. Some rather desired to obtain a place 
where they might give themselves to the infidels " (the 
Aztec Indians). "And some hath rather abide with a 
little pittance the mercy of God at sea." 

Hunger at last drove them to land ; they had eaten 
their mice, cats, and dogs ; they had eaten the parrots 
and monkeys bought for pets, and, however great a 
price had been given for these, they were thought 
profitable if they served the turn of a dinner ; they had 
begun to eat the hides in which the expedition had in- 
vested some of its gains, and these were thought very 
good meat. But this was a state of things in which 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 137 

it was madness to dream of voyaging the thousand 
miles to the Florida channel, and the three thousand 
miles across the Atlantic. On the 8th of October, they 
struck land on the Mexican coast some miles north of 
the Panuco river, which was the estuary they were seek- 
ing, with its port of Tampico. Unfortunately, they 
missed it and happened upon a part of the coast which 
was quite inhospitable and uninhabited. Their ship 
was leaky, and they could only just keep her afloat. So 
badly had she been served by the Spanish ordnance 
and so shaken by the firing of her own, " our weary and 
weak arms were scarce able to defend and keep out the 
water." All they found at this point was a place where 
they might with some difficulty send a boat ashore. 

It would not be easy to imagine a more perilous 
fix for a commander with nearly 200 men on his hands 
than that in which Hawkins now found himself. It 
was manifestly impossible that he should take them all 
with him in the Minion on the long voyage to Europe ; 
it was equally impossible for him to remain there with 
his ship or to get substantial succour in any of the 
Spanish ports. The men suggested the only way out. 
Some of them, suffering under the intolerable pangs of 
hunger, declared that they would rather be set on shore 
and left to shift for themselves as best they might, than 
endure any more of the privations and hardships of 
the Minion, with only this prospect in front of them, 
that they should presently die like flies from disease and 



138 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

starvation. Hawkins consented. Such as were willing 
to take their chance in New Spain he put on one side ; 
such as would rather share his own fate he put on the 
other side. The ship's company was then divided into 
two nearly equal portions. In this connection, Haw- 
kins had been most unjustly accused of abandoning 
his men. On this point, let Phillips speak* : 

"Being thus oppressed with famine on the one side and 
danger of drowning on the other, not knowing where to find 
relief, we began to be in wonderful despair, and we were of 
many minds. Amongst whom there were a great many that 
did desire our general to set them on land ; and making their 
choice rather to submit to the mercy of the savages or infidels 
than longer to hazard themselves at sea : where they very well 
saw that, if they should all remain together, if they perished not 
by drowning, yet hunger would enforce them, in the end, to 
eat one another. To which request our general did very wil- 
lingly agree, considering with himself that it was necessary 
for him to lessen his number ; both for the safety of himself 
and the rest." 

And Phillips goes on to speak of the quarrelling that at 
once arose. He is a credible witness, because he was 
one of those who chose to land, and suffered intensely 
thereafter, in imprisonment, slavery, and Inquisition 
torture ; and if Hawkins had been at fault, Phillips 
would have said so. Hortop, quite an independent 
narrator, corroborates him in this matter. As soon as 
the decision was taken and the division made, " it was a 
world to see how suddenly men's minds were altered ! " 
*See Hakluyt. 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 139 

Some who had just been asking to be set ashore now 
wanted to stay ; others who had wanted to go home now 
desired to be set ashore. Hawkins, as usual, took the 
direct and commonsense course. He chose to stay 
with him the most necessary persons for the manage- 
ment of the ship ; and of those who were wiUing to 
remain in the country he sent ashore those who he 
thought could best be spared, to the number of about 
a hundred. Accounts differ between 94 and 112. The 
farewells were painful, of course ; but Hawkins pro- 
mised that the next year he would either come and 
fetch them himself, or send for them. Before a year 
had passed, they had been scattered far and wide, and 
most of them were in Spanish prisons. 

Hawkins then turned his attention to the Minion 
and the voyage home. There was no opportunity of 
revictualling, but they could replenish their water casks, 
and he landed 50 men for the purpose, himself going 
with them. While they were ashore, the nories came 
on again ; " there arose an extreme storm," which pre- 
vented communication with the ship for three days. 
Fearfully they waited for the weather to improve, every 
hour expecting the leaky Minion to be driven on this 
terrible lee shore. " But yet God again had mercy 
on us, and sent fair weather." They got the water 
casks on board, and sailed, with their reduced crew on 
short rations, on October i6th. From Tampico to Cape 
Sable on the southern point of the Floridan peninsula 



I40 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

is more than a thousand miles ; but they had good 
weather and made a quick passage, disemboguing into 
the Atlantic through the Bahama Channel on November 
1 6th. The month, however, had made great inroads on 
their stock of provisions, and as they sailed into colder 
climes the famine preyed upon them severely. Many 
men died ; those who survived were so weak that they 
were hardly able to work the ship. In this condition 
they crawled across the Atlantic. Driven by contrary 
winds too far south to enable him to make the channel, 
Hawkins was obliged to set a course for the land of his 
enemies. There was irony in it. He steered for Vigo, 
and finally on December 31st hauled into the harbour of 
Pontevedra, a Httle to the north. 

England and Spain were at peace, and there was 
nothing to prevent Hawkins from re-victualling in a 
Spanish port. But news of the affair at San Juan had 
already reached Spain. William Hawkins, at Plymouth, 
on December 3rd, had received a letter from Benedick 
Spinola, stating that the English fleet was totally 
destroyed. On his arrival at Pontevedra, Hawkins 
would allow none of his men on shore. He had fresh 
meat sent off to him, of which they ate so ravenously 
as to produce a surfeit from which many of them died. 
The news spreading that " Achines de Plimua " was 
in port, the Spanish authorities became curious and 
menacing. Hawkins at once weighed for Vigo, where 
the chances were that he would find English ships. 



THE AFFAIR OF SAN JUAN. 141 

This expectation was not disappointed. They had help 
from British captains lying there, who, hearing Haw- 
kins's sad tale, put twelve fresh men on board of him 
to work the ship home. He left Vigo on January 20th, 
1569, and dropped anchor in Mount's Bay five days 
later. 

" If," says Hawkins, " all the miseries and trouble- 
some affairs of this sorrowful voyage should be per- 
fectly written, there should need a painful man with his 
pen, and as great a time as he had that wrote the Lives 
and Deaths of the Martyrs." 

The account of San Juan de Ulloa may fitly conclude 
with the letter written by Hawkins to Sir William Cecil 
the day of his arrival on the English coast : — 

"Right Honorable, — My dewty most humbly consydered : 
yt may please your honor to be advertysed that the 25th day 
of Januarii (thanks be to God) we aryved in a place in Cornewall 
called Mounts bay, onelie with the Minyon which is left us of 
all our flet, and because I wold not in my letters be prolyxe, 
after what manner we came to our dysgrace, I have sent your 
honor here inclosed some part of the circumstance, and though 
not all our meseryes that hath past yet the greatest matters 
worthye of notynge, but yf I shold wryt of all our calamytyes 
I am seure a volome as great as the byble wyll scarcelie 
suffyce ; all which things I most humblie beseeche your honor 
to advertyse the Queens Majestie and the rest of the counsell 
(soch as you shall thinke mette). 

" Our voyage was, although very hardly, well achieved and 
brought to reasonable passe, but now a great part of our 
treasure, merchandyze, shippinge and men devoured by the 
treason of the Spanyards 



142 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

"I have not moche or any thynge more to advertyse your 
honor, nore the rest, because all our business hath had in- 
felycytye, mysfortune, and an unhappy end, and therefore 
wyll treble the Queens Majestie nore the rest of my good 
lords with soch yll newes. But herewith pray your honours 
estate to impart to soch as you shall thynke mete the sequell 
of our busyness. 

"I mind with Gods grace to make all expedicyon to 
London myselfe, at what tyme I shall declare more of our 
(isstate that ys here omytted. Thus prayinge to God for your 
Honours prosperous estate take my leave: from the Mynion 
the 25th day of Januarii 1569. 

"Yours most humbly to command (signed) John Havvkyns." 

Hawkins sent ashore in Mount's Bay for help, and 
for fresh anchors and cables : he had but one left. The 
men had a terrible story to tell the Cornishmen — of 
casting forty-five dead bodies overboard, and of the 
rest of the crew subsisting for seven days on one ox- 
head. The sympathetic Englishmen did what they 
could on the instant, and one of them posted straight- 
way to Plymouth, eighty miles distant, to inform William 
Hawkins what had befallen his brother. Wilham had 
heard the story of San Juan already, and was in some 
doubt whether John was dead or alive. Immediately 
on receiving the news, he sent off a vessel from Ply- 
mouth to Mount's Bay, with victuals, anchors, cables, and 
other ship's necessaries ; then with impatience he 
awaited the arrival of John himself. 



CHAPTER XL 

AFTERMATH. 

The Judith back at Plymouth — England Furious — Fate of the Men 
who remained behind — Spain refuses Compensation — Privateers 
at Work. 

In the house in Kinterbury Street, Plymouth, where 
dwelt with William Hawkins Dame Katharine and her 
little son Richard, now between nine and ten years of 
age, the seven weeks from the 3rd of December to the 
25th of January had been weeks of agonising suspense. 
In the ordinary course of events, if John's voyage had 
been favourable, he would have reached home in 
October or November. The two months' grace might 
be allowed him for contingencies ; but on the 3rd of 
December his brother received news which fore- 
shadowed his fate. William Winter (afterwards famous 
in connection with Drake's circumnavigation) informed 
William Hawkins on that day of the letter he had re- 
ceived from Benedick Spinola, who had heard from 
Spain that in his enterprise in the Indies John Haw- 
kins had been constrained to land, and to travel far 

inland in pursuit of his traffic, and that he had been 

143 



144 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

entrapped and put to the sword with all his company 
after a desperate fight. If this were true, William wrote 
to Cecil, ""I should have cause to curse them M-hiles I 
live, and my children after me." But he had doubts 
about the accuracy of the report ; he thought the 
Spaniards had probably invented it with details to their 
hking. There was some good ground for mistrust. 
We have already heard the story of the Genoese ducats, 
and the cock-and-bull tale that Diaz had told of Haw- 
kins's success, how John had sacked a town and laden 
himself with gold and jewels. They were not duped 
by that story in Plymouth ; they hoped Spinola's might 
be equally false. But the treasure-ships of Diaz were 
still in the harbour, and were kept there, as we have 
seen, till veritable news came. 

The suspense continued unabated till the 22nd of 
January. On the evening of that day, a torn and tat- 
tered vessel entered Plymouth Sound and worked across 
to Cattewater. She was a stranger to the harbour. 
She had evidently been in the wars, for her jury-rigging 
and her battered hull told their own story. Her young 
captain was pulled to the Barbican steps and went 
ashore, and so to the house in Kinterbury Street. The 
vessel was the Judith, and William Hawkins's visitor 
was Francis Drake. He had a long and melancholy 
narrative to recite, but to all inquiries about John 
Hawkins he could return only a dubious answer. He 
might have escaped from San Juan — he might not. The 



AFTERMATH. 145 

little Judith had been three months on the voyage from 
the coast of Mexico, and had troubles and sorrows of 
her own. All Drake could tell them, in fact, was that 
the expedition had been a ruinous failure through the 
treachery of the Spaniards, that the Jesus and her 
precious cargo had been abandoned, and that John 
Hawkins was on the Minion, anchored off the island 
when his kinsman last saw him. 

William spent no time in sorrowful reflections. 
Whether his brother was dead or alive, whether the 
Spaniards had slain him or the sea had claimed him, 
he and his family were despoiled of the money and the 
ships they had embarked in the venture, and despoiled 
by Spanish villainy ; Spanish treasure-ships were in 
Plymouth harbour ; would it not be a monstrous thing 
to let them go without taking recompense for this dis- 
aster ? That same night, while Drake was in the house, 
William Hawkins sat down and indited letters to Cecil 
and to the Privy Council, advising them of what had 
happened so far as he knew it, and recommending the 
course to be taken with regard to the ships under Diaz. 
These letters he confided to Drake himself, and de- 
spatched him forthwith to London. 

" To the Right Honourable and my singular good 
Lords, the Lords of the Privy Council ; give this at 
the Court with all speed. Haste ! Haste ! " So the 
letter to the Council was endorsed in the fashion of 
the time. There was no need for the formal injunction : 

K 



146 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Francis Drake had been hit himself in the misadven- 
ture of San Juan, as well as the Hawkinses, and he was 
darkly revolving in his own mind as he sped to London 
schemes for the recovery of his losses with interest. 
How they materiaHsed is to be read in the story of his 
raid on the treasure train at Panama, and his capture 
of the Cacafuego in the Pacific. 

Almost as soon as Drake could have reached Lon- 
don, Wilham Hawkins at Plymouth had the other thread 
of the tragedy in his hand. On the 27th, the messen- 
ger from St. Michael's Mount arrived in Plymouth with 
the sorry news of the Minion. William first of all sent 
the succours just mentioned, and then wrote to Cecil, 
sending a special messenger. The decision to transfer 
the Genoese ducats to London had already been taken, 
and Sir Arthur Champernown, with a train of horse, 
foot, and artillery to guard it, purposed leaving Plymouth 
on the morrow. William then sat down to await the 
return of the brother whose absence was to him " more 
grefe than any other thing in this world " ; Dame 
Katharine and her boy the home-coming of the hus- 
band and father whom they had feared they would 
never see again. 

They were exciting times for Kinterbury Street, but 
when Hawkins came up, and Drake spread the tale 
in London, and the news v/as generally bruited 
about, the excitement was almost as great in 
every house in every other town where it be- 



AFTERMATH. 147 

came known. England was furious at the treachery 
of Don Enriquez and de Bagan ; it gloried in 
the gallant fight that Hawkins had made against such 
odds. England cursed the Spaniards who slew a 
hundred of its sons in the harbour of San Juan 
and had now a hundred more at their mercy in 
New Spain ; England worshipped the men who had 
endured this outrage, and the sufferings that were 
its sequel. 

Spain was hated the more because its star was again 
in the ascendant. While the English mariners in the 
western seas were being blown to pieces by Spanish 
guns, while their survivors were being tortured and led 
off to slavery on Spanish plantations, the Duke of Alva 
was crushing the Netherlands, the Queen of Scots was 
in England and the centre of Catholic conspiracy ; the 
Protestant part of England began to growl out the pre- 
lude to that great thunderstorm which culminated in 
the stupendous roar of 1588. The horror of San Juan, 
and the fate of the men whom Hawkins had left setting 
off on their perilous march to Tampico — these were the 
topics of discussion in every sea-port ; everywhere Haw- 
kins was hailed as a hero ; everywhere men were ready 
to join him in any enterprise that he might attempt to 
strike once more at the power of Spain, whose only 
active opponent now was the privateer fleet of the 
Prince of Orange, in which William Hawkins held a 
commission. The feeling was very deep. There was 



148 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

good cause for it — how good the people of England did 
not know till years afterwards. 

It may be well here to summarise shortly the ad- 
ventures that befel the hundred men Hawkins had left 
in Mexico, and the few prisoners taken at San Juan. 
Their story will explain much of the growing indigna- 
tion against Philip and the Inquisition, since it was the 
story of nearly every Englishman who chanced to fall 
into their hands. 

We left Robert Barret, the master of the Jesus, in 
irons on board de Ba^an's flagship. He was taken out 
of the vessel before she sank, and into the town. There 
he might have seen some of his unfortunate compatriots, 
taken when the Spaniards seized the Jesus, strung up 
to tall posts by their arms till the blood burst through 
the skin of their finger-tips. Some of these escaped in 
the end, and bore about England the marks of their 
torture for a witness to their words. Barret was taken 
to Mexico and imprisoned, shipped to Spain in 1570, 
dungeoned at Seville and Triana till 1573, tried by the 
Inquisition, and burned at the stake for a heretic. John 
Gilbert, who was among those landed by Hawkins, 
shared his fate. Job Hortop and John Bone, after 
serving as slaves in Mexico, were imprisoned in Spain 
till 1573, when they were sentenced to ten years at the 
galleys and subsequent imprisonment for life. Others 
at the same time were sent to the galleys for various 
terms. Hortop escaped his imprisonment after twelve 



AFTERMATH. 149 

years at the galleys, and, having served the Treasurer 
of the King's Mint two years as a menial, contrived to 
flee to England. Phillips, who was with another party, 
gives horrible details of flogging and other torture at the 
instance of the Holy Inquisition in Mexico. 

Indignation flamed in England as tales of this sort 
dribbled home. Hawkins, as we shall see, left no stone 
unturned to secure the rescue of his men. The expedi- 
tion he had promised was impracticable. It soon be- 
came known that all the English were prisoners, and 
that the majority of them had been sent up to the city 
of Mexico, where they could not be reached by force. 
Hawkins then turned to diplomacy. But, meanwhile, 
the affairs of the third voyage were still unsettled. The 
adventurers had a big claim to make against Spain, 
and Hawkins was busily engaged for some time in the 
inquiry by the Admiralty into the extent of the English 
losses. This was held in March. Depositions were 
made by several witnesses, including Hawkins himself, 
upon eleven interrogatories, and in answer to questions 
directed to the formation of a schedule of values, Haw- 
kins deposed that the expedition cost ;^ 16,500 in all to 
lit out, and the treasure on board the Jesus was nearly 
;^ 1 2,000. His personal belongings were valued at 
i^440, and included twelve pieces of tapestry with which 
his stateroom was hung. 

The claim put in against Spain for all these losses 
was, of course, never satisfied. Philip could retort in 



ISO A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

double barrel. He could point out that in going to the 
West Indies at all Hawkins was transgressing the com- 
mands of the owner of those colonies. Trading with 
the planters by any foreigners of English or other 
nationality had been expressly forbidden ; Hawkins 
had defied the fleet of Spain in a Spanish port and had 
paid the penalty. Nothing was said about the manner 
in which it was exacted. The second barrel was 
charged with complaints against the privateer fleet that 
infested the Channel, and wrought havoc among the 
Spanish ships carrying money and supplies to the 
Netherlands. This fleet, we have noted, was now the 
only active engine of Protestantism employed against 
the Roman system. Froude describes it as " the 
strangest phenomenon in naval history." It was com- 
pounded chiefly of English and Dutch vessels, with 
some Huguenot privateers. Count de la Marck, its 
Admiral, was a Flemish noble. Its operations were 
directed from the Downs or Dover Roads, but a second- 
ary base was Plymouth Harbour, where it could refit 
and hide in safety when occasion demanded. The 
Hawkinses had several ships in it, and made large 
profits from the spoil of Spanish treasure. The car- 
goes taken 

"were openly sold in Dover market. If the Spanish ambassa- 
dor is to be believed in a complaint which he addressed to 
Cecil, Spanish gentlemen taken prisoners were set up to 
public auction there for the ransom they would fetch, and 
were disposed of for one hundred pounds each. If Alva sent 



AFTERMATH. 151 

cruisers from Antwerp to bum them out, they retreated under 
the guns of Dover Castle. Roving squadrons of them flew 
down to the Spanish coasts, pillaged churches, carried off 
church plate, and the captains drank success to piracy out 
of chalices. The Spanish merchants at last estimated the 
property destroyed at three million ducats, and they said that 
if their flag could no longer protect them, they must decline 
to make further contracts for the supply of the Netherlands 
Army."* 

This sort of fierce work was exactly to the taste 
of John Hawkins, burning under a sense of the wicked- 
ness of San Juan ; he and his seamen of the West re- 
joiced in taking it out of the Spaniards in kind. If 
Spanish gentlemen were put up to auction in Dover 
market, their position was undignified ; but what was it 
compared with that of Englishmen left to the tender 
mercies of slave-drivers in Mexico, or brought to the 
auto da fe at Seville ^ The work went on, Hawkins 
added further laurels to his name as a seaman, and 
to his fame with Queen Elizabeth ; but all the while 
he thought of the hundred comrades he had left on the 
beach to the north of the Panuco river, how to save 
them and restore them to their friends. Another ex- 
pedition was impossible, and would have been useless 
had it been possible ; Hawkins was revolving a deep 
plot in his mind which was put into execution two years 
afterwards. 

Meantime, while he was not at sea, he resided at 
Plymouth, where his popularity was unbounded. In 

* Froude. 



152 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

1 57 1 he and Sir Humphrey Gilbert were elected mem- 
bers of Parliament for the town, and proceeded to Lon- 
don. There he was better able to advance the de- 
sign he had conceived for undoing the King of Spain 
and getting his comrades deliverance. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE FERIA PLOT. 

Hawkins's First Essay in Statecraft — Fooling the Spanish Ambas- 
sador — Sending a Representative to the Spanish Court — The Plot 
develops — The Sequel. 

It was in 1572 that Hawkins made his first essay in 
statecraft, and proved that in the devious ways of 
diplomacy and pohtical plotting he could be no less 
acute, discreet, and successful than in the conduct of 
maritime affairs. In order to the proper understanding 
of the Feria conspiracy, in which Hawkins was the 
chief agent, it is well to take a brief view of the situa- 
tion in which this proceeding was sanctioned by the 
Queen and by Cecil, now Lord Burleigh. Cecil had 
been no friend to Hawkins in the past. His influence 
had been cast against the expeditions to the Indies be- 
cause, to him, they savoured of buccaneering. He had never 
concealed his dislike for adventurers of the school of 
Hawkins. But he had been compelled by this time to 
admit the importance of Hawkins as a personage in the 
nation, and when the Feria affair was unfolded to him 
he acquiesced in it. He had learnt that his quiet way 

would not do, and that the Spanish pretensions and the 

153 



154 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

dangers at home must be fought with stronger and more 
subtle weapons than he had been wiUing to employ 
hitherto. 

The Ridolfi conspiracy opened his eyes, and 
startled the country. In May, 1572, both Houses of 
Parliament demanded the execution of Mary Queen 
of Scots. Queen Elizabeth courageously and gener- 
ously rejected the demand. Yet Cecil knew that if the 
plot had been successful, the murder of the Queen 
would have preceded the elevation of Mary and the 
extermination of heresy. This is anticipating the story ; 
but it illustrates the gradual conversion of Cecil's 
mind to the necessity for sterner measures. 

The air was full of plot, counterplot and suspicion at 
the beginning of 1572, when John Hawkins learned 
that a large number of his marooned seamen had been 
removed from Mexico to Spain, and were in the prison 
of the Inquisition at Seville, where they ran the risk 
of a mere cast of the die between the martyr's stake 
and the Spanish galleys. He raged in his heart at his 
impotence for succour. The disturbed condition of 
political affairs in England suggested to him a means 
by which he might at the same time assist the Queen 
against her enemies, and secure the release of those 
of his companions who were alive and had so far es- 
caped the clutches of the Holy Office. What could 
not be done by force of arms might be achieved by 
guile. And, if, in the tremendous deception which 



THE FERIA PLOT. 155 

gradually took practical shape in his mind, he felt any 
qualms of conscience, the memory of the blood-stained 
pebbles of San Juan Island and the corpse-strewn 
decks of the ] esus of Lubek provided a sufficient 
antidote. 

Hawkins knew that the Spanish ambassador in Lon- 
don was fully informed of every move in the game 
which the malcontent CathoHcs in England were play- 
ing, and was the direct intermediary between Philip 
and Alva and the Duke of Norfolk. The Catholics in 
the Eastern Counties were to rise under Norfolk when 
Philip gave the word, and the Duke of Alva was to in- 
vade England from the Netherlands. Hawkins went 
to the ambassador for a private conversation. The rep- 
resentative of Spain at the English Court was Don 
Guerau de Espes: de Silva, the medium of so many 
of Philip's protests to the Queen about the illicit pro- 
ceedings of " Achines de Plimua," was gone. 

Hawkins found, as he expected, that the ambassador 
was ready to listen to any tale that accorded with his 
own ambitions and with the state in which he believed 
public opinion to be. It was an article of faith of the 
Spanish party that a great body of discontent existed 
in England, and that it was not confined to the Catho- 
lics. Under the cover of extreme secrecy, Hawkins — 
who had not been visiting Spanish countries all these 
years without acquiring something of the Castilian 
tongue — told Don Guerau that he and a great numbe 



156 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

of his friends were extremely dissatisfied with the treat- 
ment they were receiving from Queen EHzabeth. She 
was a miser ; she was niggard of her money ; she did not 
keep her promises ; she did not reward the services 
which the volunteer fleet rendered to her ; the volunteer 
fleet was ready to mutiny. It was a cool suggestion to 
make, and it would not have succeeded with a man 
who knew the antecedents and character of Hawkins, 
or was able to gauge the signs of the times in England. 
Hawkins would probably not have tried to work it with 
de Silva. PhiHp himself, when the matter came to his 
ears afterwards, showed more discrimination than his 
ambassador: he could not believe, until he was over- 
persuaded, that Hawkins was anything but a fiery Pro- 
testant, a lost heretic, and a devoted servant of his 
Queen. 

Don Guerau, however, took it all in. Hawkins 
added to his complaints about his treatment by the 
Queen a still more daring assertion, and many ingeni- 
ous arguments to persuade him of its sincerity. He 
professed his affection for the one true Church ; he ex- 
pressed his bitter lamentation over the evil deeds he 
had committed in the past ; he said he was horrified by 
the strides that heresy was making in England, and that 
he was eager to assist in any way he could to place the 
CathoHc Queen of Scots upon the Throne ! 

The idea of the Spanish ambassador sitting as 
Father Confessor to the arch-captain of the English 



THE FERIA PLOT. 157 

privateers must have been humorous, even to stolid 
Hawkins; the ambassador's bhndness to the ludicrous 
aspect of the situation showed how well Hawkins had 
judged his man and his hour. The best way that sug- 
gested itself to his mind, Hawkins said, for bringing 
about the consummation that they both desired, was that 
he should turn over, with his west-country fleet of 
privateers, to the cause of the King of Spain — if Philip 
would have them. All he wanted in return was the re- 
lease of the poor sailors he had left upon the coast of 
Mexico — unfortunate mariners who knew nothing of 
high poHtics, and were not responsible for anything that 
had happened in the West Indies and on the Spanish 
Main. 

Don Guerau believed his story. Many a cleverer 
man has believed a farrago of nonsense which chanced 
to be in concert with his own wishes. It was neces- 
sary for the success of the proposed rebellion that the 
EngHsh should be ready to rise against the Queen's 
Government ; the whole scheme presupposed subdued 
revolt throughout her realm ; the suggestion did but con- 
firm what the friends of the Duke of Norfolk asserted. 
Hawkins fooled him to the top of his bent. Don 
Guerau promised that he would transmit the proposal to 
Spain and inform his confidant of the result. The am- 
bassador wrote at once to King Phihp's secretary, 
Cayas, and also to the Duke of Alva. He pointed out 
what a magnificent recruit to the cause of Spain in Eng- 



158 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

land such a man as Hawkins would be, and what in- 
fluence he wielded among the seamen of all ranks. He 
confessed that Hawkins's character was shady, and that 
his reputation stank in the nostrils of good Spaniards. 
Hawkins had undeniably been a pirate. But that was 
not an uncommon profession among Englishmen in 
these latter days, and to tell the truth (the hit was a sly 
one) there was hardly any room for wonder, considering 
the ease with which Spain submitted to the process of 
plunder. He enlarged upon Hawkins's boldness and 
resolution, and upon his capability as a sea-captain 
and a soldier. He advised the King to accept the 
offer. 

Alva seemed to see through it. He would not enter- 
tain the idea. King Philip also was suspicious. Haw- 
kins of Plymouth ? Ojo ! When Hawkins went to the 
ambassador to get his answer, it was that Philip would 
not accept. Was there no hope at all ? None, was the 
rejoinder — unless Hawkins himself would go to Madrid 
and state his case, or send some confidential person who 
could explain the matter and give assurances. 

Hawkins in Madrid! The notion was prepos- 
terous. The victim of San Juan would not place his head 
in the hornet's nest again. But he might find a person 
who could go without danger; and he did find him m 
the shape of George Fitzwilliam. There is some doubt 
about Fitzwilliam's identity, but he is described as one 
of Hawkins's officers. The name may have been 



THE FERIA PLOT. 159 

merely assumed for the occasion. Hawkins must have 
chosen him from among men upon whom he could place 
implicit reliance, and it is not improbable that he had 
some acquaintance or connection in Madrid, or the 
means of making it. The most likely thing is that he 
was known to the Duchess of Feria, an English lady 
who had been maid of honour to Queen Mary. The 
Duke of Feria was a member of Philip's Privy Council, 
and one of his most influential ministers. Hawkins 
charged Fitzwilliam with the mission to Spain, where 
he sought out the Ferias and opened the business to 
them. They procured him an audience of King Philip. 
Fitzwilliam then laid the whole of the plot before his 
Majesty. Philip could not get rid of his suspicions all 
at once ; he was notoriously slow of thought and action, 
and his deliberation should have served him well in a 
question of this sort. The deputy declared that Haw- 
kins was a true son of the Church, and could not en- 
dure the advance of heresy in England, that he had 
great grievances against Queen EHzabeth, and was pas- 
sionately anxious to see her deposed and Mary Queen 
of Scots set in her place. In fact, he repeated with 
elaborations all the taradiddle that had taken in Don 
Guerau. 

King Philip knew all about the privateer fleet of the 
West, which spoiled his ships and invaded his colonies, 
held his proclamations in contempt, and even made 
raids on his own coasts. It was this terrible fleet which 



i6o A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Hawkins now offered to bring over to the side of Philip, 
Spain, and the true Church. It was unquestionably a 
tempting prospect. But Philip remained cautious. If 
he did not know what a line of Protestants since old 
William in Henry VIII.'s time Hawkins represented, he 
knew, at any rate, that he had not acted in the West 
Indies like a son of the true Church. Did Hawkins 
know the Duke of Norfolk ? Had he any personal 
acquaintance with Mary Queen of Scots ? 

These questions were put to Fitzwilliam, who 
was obliged to answer them in the negative. 
But Hawkins, he said, was known to everybody 
by reputafion ; he stood on his reputation, his 
acquirements as a seaman, his influence in the fleet which 
he now offered to the King. Philip had a chance to 
accept the services of the finest sailor in the Western 
Seas, one of the most resolute fighting captains of the 
day, and a splendid fleet of fast ships which would be a 
terror to the enemies of Spain. All he was asked to 
do in return was to pay the wages of the seamen, to 
advance a little money for repairs which had been 
neglected by the niggling EHzabeth — and to release 
those few poor sailors for whom Hawkins had so great 
a compassion. King Phihp could not but admit that it 
was a very good bargain indeed — if he could only trust 
" Achines ! " Until he knew more of a certainty he would 
say nothing about it. Fitzwilliam should return to 
England, and tell the Admiral that if he would send a 



THE FERIA PLOT. i6i 

letter of recommendation from Mary Queen of Scots, 
his proposal would be entertained. 

The sequel is amazing. The Ferias had none of the 
caution of leaden-footed Phihp. They believed in Haw- 
kins, believed in the design, and believed in the trium- 
phant overthrow of Elizabeth. They opened their 
hearts to Fitzwilliam on the subject of Queen Mary 
and the plot that was in progress in England ; they gave 
him presents to take to the imprisoned Queen, and let- 
ters which would secure for him confidential treat- 
ment. 

Hawkins's scheme thus began to unfold more 
astounding results than ever he could have dreamed of. 
All he wanted was the release of the survivors of San 
Juan. He was now in a fair way to get that, but he was 
also in possession of the inmost secrets of the deadliest 
enemies of the Queen he adored. 

The acts upon which Hawkins now entered have 
been described as boldly Machiavelhan. Machiavelli's 
conception of vertii was self-reliant ability ; he warned 
his prince to acquire both the nature of the fox and 
that of the lion. In this enterprise Hawkins did dis- 
play the characteristics of the fox, as at San Juan he had 
exhibited those of the lion. As his scheme unravelled 
itself in form so much more elaborate than he had ex- 
pected, he came to the conclusion that he would not be 
justified in carrying it further on his own responsibility. 
The decision was wise. For a private person in the 



102 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

State to have conducted by himself an affair of this 
sort would have laid him open to grave suspicion. 
Hawkins had no hesitation in taking Cecil into his con- 
fidence at once, and urging him to obtain the consent of 
the Queen to the next step. Cecil could not refuse. 
His eyes were being opened every day to dangers which 
he had not fully apprehended. The letters from the 
Ferias to Queen Mary were quite sufficient to show 
the extreme urgency of the case. Cecil consented ; 
the Queen consented ; Hawkins went on with all the 
resources of the secret service of the day at his 
back. 

Fitzwilliam went down to Sheffield and delivered 
his letters, when their contents had been fully mastered 
by the Queen's Minister. He tried hard to obtain 
speech with the Queen of Scots, but failed. This 
attempt to act without the assistance of the authorities 
served to show that Lord Shrewsbury, who was in charge 
of the royal prisoner, was incorruptible, sincere as the 
regard he entertained for her was known to be. Fitz- 
william communicated the result of the journey to his 
principal, and they agreed that Cecil should be asked 
to obtain for him means of access to the Queen, in 
order to receive her reply to the Feria letters and pro- 
cure Hawkins's recommendation to King Philip. Haw- 
kins wrote to Cecil (May 13th, 1572). His letter shows 
that his first consideration throughout was the fate of 
his poor sailors. Fie speaks of " the better obtaining 



THE FERIA PLOT. 163 

of our men's liberty, which otherwise are not to be 
released " — that was unless the testimonial to Hawkins 
could be extracted from Queen Mary. " And if it shall 
seem good unto your Lordship, he " (FitzwiUiam) " may 
be recommended by such credit as to your Lordship 
shall seem best: for, unless she be first spoken with, 
and answer from her sent into Spain, the credit for the 
treasure cannot be obtained. If your Lordship think 
meet that FitzwiUiam shall be recommended to speak 
with her ; if I may know by what sort your Lordship 
will appoint, there shall be all diligence for his despatch 
used. And hereof I most humbly pray your good 
Lordship's speedy resolution." 

Cecil wasted no time. He did not confide in Shrews- 
bury, but in his letter of advice declared that friends of 
the man FitzwiUiam were prisoners in Spain. He had 
an idea that they might be liberated if the Queen would 
lend him her aid. Shrewsbury was to allow FitzwiUiam 
to see the Queen in private. FitzwiUiam was received 
with cordiality by the Queen of Scots, as any friend of 
the Duke and Duchess of Feria would have been. She 
agreed to write to Philip about Hawkins's men ; she 
had no objection to do such a service for Englishmen 
in distress. Without placing too implicit a trust in 
Hawkins's ambassador, she did all that he required, and 
gave him letters to Philip and to the Duke and Duchess 
for delivery. FitzwiUiam went straight to Hawkins, 
who wrote to Cecil informing him of the con- 



i64 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

tinued success of the intrigue, and forwarding the 
letters. 

"He hath also a book of gold (sent from her to the Duchess 
of Feria) with the Old Service in Latin ; and in the end hath 
written this word with her own hand, Absit nobis gloriari, 
nisi in cruce Domini nostri Jesu Cristi. MAEIE R. 

" I would have brought your lordship the packet myself ; 
but he would deliver it himself" (i.e., to the Duchess'); "and 
requireth to have from me a speedy despatch for his departure 
into Spain : the which I would gladly your Lordship would 
determine. 

"And if the course which I have begun shall be thought 
good by her Majesty, that I shall proceed ; there is no doubt 
that three commodities will follow, that is : 

"i. First, the practices of the enemies will be more and 
more discovered. 

"2. There will be credit gotten hither for a good sum of 
money.* 

"3. Thirdly, the same money, as the time shall bring forth 
cause, shall be employed to their own detriment : and what 
ships there shall be appointed (as they shall suppose to serve 
their turn), may do some notable exploit, to their great 
damage. 

"I most humbly pray your Lordship to carry this matter 
so as Fitzwilliam may not have me in suspicion ; and as speedy 
a determination for his despatch as conveniently may be." 

This letter is dated the 7th of June. Froude does 
not seem to have examined it carefully ; he attributes the 
list of " commodities " that would ensue from the scheme 
to Cecil and not to Hawkins. 

Fitzwilliam had the ear of the Spanish ambassador, 

* It will be remembered that Hawkins stipulated for an advance 
for the payment of his crews and the equipment of his ships. 



THE FERIA PLOT. 165 

and told him what had been done. Don Guerau wrote to 
King Phihp a letter with which Fitzwilliam was also en- 
trusted. Having received his commission from Haw- 
kins, he hastened to Madrid again. The scheme worked 
to a wonder. FitzwilUam's arrival happened at the 
psychological moment. The Pope had blessed the con- 
spiracy, and Ridolfi had come to the Spanish Court with 
the Papal sanction. The prospect was roseate, and 
everything travelled in harmony with Philip's desires. 
In these circumstances, as was to be expected, Queen 
Mary's letter was enough to disarm what remained of 
his suspicions. He accepted Hawkins's offer and his 
conditions. Fitzwilliam hastened back to Plymouth, 
where he arrived at the beginning of September. On 
the 4th of that month, Hawkins wrote from Kinterbury 
Street to Cecil in London: 

" My very good Lord, — It may please your honour to be 
advertised that Fitzwilliam is returned from the Court of 
Spain ; where his message was acceptably received both by 
the King himself, the Duke of Feria, and others of his Privy 
Council. 

" His despatch and answer were with great expedition, and 
with great countenance and favour of the King. 

" The Articles are sent to the Ambassador, with order also 
for money to be paid me by him, for the enterprise to proceed 
with all diligence. 

" Their pretence is that my power should join with the 
Duke of Alva's power, which he doth secretly provide in 
Flanders, as well as with the power which comeih with the 
Duke of Medina out of Spain : and so altogether to invade 
this realm, and set up the Queen of Scots,'' 



i66 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

It may be observed in passing that the proposed 
strategy of this nebulous expedition was precisely the 
same up to a point as that adopted sixteen years later 
when the Armada sailed against England. There was 
this important difference — that Hawkins and the 
western fleet changed sides. The conspirator con- 
tinues : 

" They have practised with us for the burning of her 
Majesty's ships ; therefore there would be some good care 
had of them : but not as it may appear that anything is dis- 
covered, as your Lordship's consideration can well provide." 

It was foxy in the extreme ; Hawkins did not want 
the Spanish suspicions aroused till the ;^40,ooo which 
was to be provided for the fleet was paid over. He 
mentioned that Philip had entrusted to Fitzwilliam a 
ruby " of good price " for the Queen of Scots, together 
with letters, which Hawkins thought might be delivered 
to her ; there was nothing of any importance in them. 
Philip's verbal message to the Queen was that he had 
now " none other care than to place her in her own." 
Hawkins suggested that it would be advisable to allow 
Fitzwilliam to have further access to the Queen of Scots 
to render thanks for the delivery of the prisoners, who 
were now at liberty. It must always be remembered 
that the exceptions to this were the cases of those men 
already in the hands of the Inquisition ; the Holy 
Office did not release its clutch upon them, as we have 
seen from the narrative of Job Hortop. This, Hawkins 



THE FERIA PLOT. 167 

suggested, would provide a colourable excuse for his 
Lordship to confer with Fitzwilliam more largely. 

He sent to Cecil a copy of the pardon he had him- 
self received from the King of Spain, " in the very order 
and manner I have it." Further pardons of an even 
more generous and comprehensive character were pre- 
ferred to be presented to him by the Dukes of Alva 
and Medina, although, as he said, this was large enough, 
and accompanied by great titles and honours from the 
King — " from which may God deliver me ! " John 
Hawkins as a Spanish grandee was a comic fiction' of 
Philip's imagination. Copies of letters from the Ferias, 
Duke and Duchess and their son, welcoming this por- 
tentous recruit to the good cause, were handed on to 
Cecil by Hawkins. " Their practices be very mis- 
chievous," he piously observed ; " and they be never 
idle, but God, I hope, will confound them, and turn their 
devices upon their own necks." He wound up by an- 
nouncing that Fitzwilliam was on the way to London, 
and that he would presently follow himself and wait 
upon the Queen. 

In the sequel, Norfolk was beheaded, and there were 
some hangings. The chance of anything in the nature 
of a serious plot for some considerable time was very 
slight, for the Duke of Alva, reverting to his original 
view about Hawkins with a sense of disgust at his 
aberration, immediately washed his hands of the English 
Catholics and all their works. The sky was thus cleared 



i68 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

by the bomb which Hawkins had devised and exploded, 
although he had no conception at first of its deadly 
nature. We shall not be wrong in assuming that his 
chief satisfaction was the Uberation of his poor sailors, 
now on their way home, each with ten of Philip's 
dollars in his pocket. 

The exact details of his pretended scheme are in- 
teresting. He was to take over sixteen ships and i,6oo 
men. He stipulated for two months' pay in advance, 
and the amount was actually made over by the Spanish 
ambassador, and by Hawkins handed to the Queen, who 
used it in works of defence ; it was even a neater 
instance of turning Philip's guns on himself than the 
leading case of the Genoese ducats. The agreement is 
preserved among the Spanish archives. It was signed 
and sealed at Madrid on August loth, 1571, between 
the Duke of Feria, representing King Philip, and George 
FitzwilUam, representing John Hawkins. It provided 
that the sixteen ships should be armed with 420 guns, 
and the monthly pay was to be 16,987 ducats. 

When particulars of the discovery of the Ridolfi 
plot began to leak out, there were, of course, some 
suspicions about Hawkins. It was inevitable. They 
were never entertained for a moment by those who 
knew that " a more devoted and loyal subject never 
lived." But some people were taken in by the pretence, 
and the doubts have persisted. Dr. Lingard was de- 
ceived, and quoted the agreement above-mentioned 



THE FERIA PLOT. 169 

as proof that Hawkins had consented to betray his 
country for a Spanish bribe! Lingard says: "The 
secret was carefully kept, but did not elude suspicion. 
Hawkins was summoned and examined by order of the 
Council. Their lordships were, or pretended to be, 
satisfied, and he was engaged in the Queen's service." 
The letters cited show the injustice and folly of such a 
charge. 

This is an episode to which it is no more useful to 
apply the ethics of the present day than to apply them 
to the slaving expeditions. The whole of Europe was 
mined and counter-mined with plots, and it was no 
discredit to a plain English seaman that he devised a 
scheme whereby none was injured and the hfe of his 
Queen and the liberties of his country were, very prob- 
ably, saved. It is a more highly romantic story than the 
pages of most fiction contain, and it has the virtue of 
being perfectly true. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE FAVOUR OF THE QUEEN. 

Sowing the Seeds of the Dutch Republic — Hawliins takes part in 
the Relief of Rochelle — Begins his Career as Naval Adminis- 
trator — An Attempt upon his Life — A Mysterious Letter to Ihe 
Queen. 

Whatever the world thought about Hawkins's part 
in the Feria affair, Queen Elizabeth placed the question 
of her own belief beyond all shade of doubt. He was 
her loyal servitor, the protector of her Crown and person. 
He was never a courtier, even in the same sense as 
Drake ; but his affection for the Queen was deep, and 
it coincided as a spring of action with his inborn 
patriotism and his enthusiasm for the Protestant cause. 
And while Queen Elizabeth thought highly of him, the 
majority of his countrymen also held him in esteem. 
They all loved a bold sailor ; Hawkins's boldness, 
courage, and seaman's capacity were recognised and ap- 
preciated everywhere. In that day you could not make 
a national hero by telegraph overnight, but as fast as 
fame could run it spread his popularity. His own 
narrative of the Third Voyage had been circu- 
lated widely throughout the country, and the de- 

170 



THE FAVOUR OF THE QUEEN. 171 

tails of the adventure of San Juan were treasured 
by every hero-worshipper of an adventure-loving 
age. 

Even while the Feria design was being worked out, 
Count Ludovici, through the agency of Sir Francis 
Walsingham, was begging Queen Elizabeth to give 
Hawkins licence to serve him " underhand " against the 
Spanish power in Flanders, and declaring that not a 
Spaniard could land there while Hawkins kept the seas. 
His reputation as an admiral of ships and a captain of 
men was not confined to England. Elizabeth, how- 
ever, was in no mind just then for the prosecution of 
privy warfare in Europe. The discovery of the Ridolfi 
plot and the defeat of the machinations of the Duke of 
Norfolk eased the situation at home. Ehzabeth rehed 
on her favourite weapon, the tongues of ambassadors, 
even, as in the Armada struggle thereafter, she kept 
her Navy short of gunpowder and depended on words 
instead. She affected to listen to the complaints of 
Spanish merchants about the depredations committed 
by the privateer fleet. The Dutch Admiral, de la 
Marck, was ostentatiously ordered to leave the Downs 
cUid Dover Roads, which for so long a time had been 
his rendezvous and headquarters. Ostentatiously — yes ; 
but de la Marck knew that the ostentation was meant 
for the Spanish ambassador in London, through whose 
eyes King Philip saw what was passing in England, 
rather than for himself. He stayed six weeks at 



];2 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Dover after he had received the royal command, and 
then suddenly put to sea. 

By some curious coincidence, he weighed out of 
Dover Roads just at the moment when a large Spanish 
convoy was approaching the Straits. He captured 
two of the biggest ships and chased the others till he 
harried them up the North Sea. England was no 
longer, nominally, hospitable to him ; he must have a 
home and habitation somewhere ; a few days later, 
watchers at Brille saw his topsails rising out of the sea. 
They saw him come into the roadstead with all his 
fleet ; they saw him send ashore a messenger. The 
messenger announced that de la Marck demanded, in 
the name of the Prince of Orange, the surrender of the 
town. The inhabitants of Brille could imagine nothing 
more to their taste ; they were sullenly acquiescent in 
the Spanish domination because the Duke of Alva had 
a garrison there. The garrison was no match for de la 
Marck's force ; the thing was easy and bloodless. 
Within a very short time Brille was a strong citadel of 
Protestantism. Its example was infectious. The other 
coast towns of the Netherlands rose, overwhelmed the 
alien garrisons, and dragged down the holy banners of 
Spain. The Duke of Alva might tear his beard as he 
pleased. The seed that sprang up into a great Dutch 
Republic had been sown. 

But Hawkins had no part in this ; Elizabeth thought 
he had inflicted sufficient pin-pricks upon her brother- 



THE FAVOUR OF THE QUEEN. 173 

in-law for the time being, and wanted him for other 
business. He was again elected member for Plymouth 
in 1572, and the same year had a share in the operations 
for the relief of Rochelle. The story of this trans- 
action is not preserved in any great detail, but the 
skeleton of it is interesting. It first crops up in a 
letter from Sir Thomas Smith to Cecil (Jan- 
uary 8th, 1572). This was the Thomas Smith of 
De Republica Anglortuit fame, who was in attendance 
upon the Queen at Hampton Court, through whom she 
sent her desires to Cecil in London. Hawkins had 
apparently suggested some scheme by which the 
Huguenots at Rochelle might be assisted, for Smith 
mentions that he had shown Hawkins's letter to the 
Queen. The Comte Montgomerie and Vidame were 
at court, and they were requesting the Queen to send 
Hawkins or another captain, under some pretence that 
might easily be invented, to Rochelle with supplies of 
gunpowder to replenish the magazines of its defenders. 
The only pretence that suggested itself to them was 
that which Hawkins himself had adopted at divers times 
in the West Indies : they recommended that he should 
pop up at Rochelle as from nowhere in particular, 
" driven thither by tempest or contrary winds." 

There was nobody living better able to harness the 
elements to his purposes ; but Elizabeth was doubtful. 
She was at peace with the King of France ; it was 
notorious that the Prince of Conde's commission ran in 



174 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

a great many ships of the Plymouth fleet, for the French 
ambassador had only recently been complaining about 
it, and urging the Queen to give no countenance to this 
surreptitious assistance of the rebellious subjects of his 
master. Nevertheless, the Queen believed it necessary 
for the maintenance of the Protestant cause in Europe, 
on which the safety of her throne depended, that 
Rochelle should not fall to the besieging army ; and at 
her request Sir Thomas Smith begged Cecil to "think 
of it, and devise how it might be done." 

This was work of a sort for which Cecil had no 
liking ; he detested these intrigues. But the events of 
the last two or three years had alarmed him ; he did 
" think of it," and he devised how it might be done. 
Hawkins was the instrument he chose. It was a task 
after his very heart, and withal the easiest he had set 
his hands to. The last we hear of it is in a letter from 
Charles IX. of France to La Motte Fenelon (23rd 
February, 1573) making plaint that " M. Haquin" had 
joined with certain of his rebels near the Isle of Wight, 
with twelve or thirteen ships, had carried munitions and 
stores from England to La Rochelle, and had captured 
several French vessels. The taking of the French ships 
was not in the contract, but the Catholic bdtiment on 
the sea, with Catholic property on board, was fair game 
for a combined squadron of English and Huguenot 
privateers, and to have allowed it to go unransacked 
would have been to neglect the bounties of Providence. 



THE FAVOUR OF THE QUEEN. 175 

At La Rochelle in 1571 had been held the Synod of 
the Protestant Churches of France, under the presi- 
dency of Beza, to draw up a confession of faith. It was 
the stronghold, the one tower, of Protestantism on the 
Continent, and Hawkins's munitions, without doubt, 
helped it to withstand successfully the terrible siege in 
which the armies of the Catholic King lost 20,000 men, 
and then failed to reduce the place. 

In this year of 1573, John Hawkins began his great 
career as administrator of the British Navy. It was a 
post to which he was called with universal approval. 
All his qualities recommended him for it — his sound 
judgment, his vast experience of the sea and sea- 
fighting, of ships and ship-building, of seamen and 
their management, his business instincts, and his tre- 
mendous, indomitable energy and capacity for work. 
If Hawkins had known all the trouble and misery that 
this appointment was to involve for him he would never 
have accepted it. That would have been a great loss 
to the nation and its Navy, for the results he 
achieved by way of naval improvements and dockyard 
administration were magnificent. England had solid 
reason to be thankful that the tribulations which 
the future held were concealed from Hawkins in 

1573- 

It will be more convenient to deal with his official 
life in a separate chapter ; one or two incidents that 
stand out in this time of transition from the character 



i;6 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

of sea-rover and adventurer to that of statesman may 
be fitly mentioned here. 

Like her great father, EHzabeth admired a strong 
man. Hawkins had endeared himself to her, not only 
by the enterprise of voyages which had returned a 
handsome profit on her private outlay, not only by his 
vindication of the character of the fighting Englishman 
at San Juan, not only by his terrorisation of her enemies 
upon the sea. She realised the terrible danger she had 
just escaped, and knew that but for the scheme of guile 
which Hawkins had concocted for the release of his poor 
sailors, she might have Hved only long enough to see 
her foes triumphant and a usurper in her place. There- 
fore when, in 1573, an attempt was made upon the life 
of Hawkins, her rage knew no measure. The Admiral 
was on his way to Court when he was attacked by a man 
who mistook him for Sir Christopher Hatton, a 
notorious member of the Catholic party. The assailant 
was Peter Burchet, a member of the Inner Temple, a 
fanatical Papist-hater, who would have killed Hatton 
like a dog if he had been lucky, and deemed the 
murder merit. Hawkins got out of the affair with one 
dangerous stab. After the first blow, he defended 
himself vigorously, overcame and seized Biurchet, and 
handed him over to justice. There was some peril 
that Hawkins's wound would prove fatal, and the Queen 
was so maddened by the possibility that she wanted to 
have Burchet tried by martial law, and strung up by the 



THE FAVOUR OF THE QUEEN. 177 

neck immediately without benefit of clergy. Essex 
persuaded her of the inadvisibility and illegality of such 
summary measures. Burchet was committed to the 
Tower. He struck his keeper over the head with a 
billet and killed him — and was hanged for that murder. 
Sir Thomas Smith thus refers to the matter in a 
letter to Cecil : — 

" Her Majestic taketh heavily the hurting of Hawkyns, and 
sent her own surgeons to hym, and Mr. Gorges to visite and 
comforte hym. It will sone appeare whether he can escape 
or no. Neither her Majestie, nor allmost any one here, can 
thynke otherwyse but that there is some couspiracie for that 
murder, and that Burchet is not indeede mad. It is said here 
that divers tymes, both by wordes and writings, Mr. Haddon 
hath bene admonished to take hede to hymself ; for his life 
was laide in waite for. Mr. Garret told me that he had bene 
with one or two gentlemen that came out of the west countrey 
to London with Burchet, who declareth that he had many 
phantasticall speeches and doings whereby they might per- 
ceive that he was not well in his witts all the whole journey 
hitherwards." 

One little story (the date is 1577) may be told, too, 
in order that it may not interrupt the narrative of Haw- 
kins's career in the capacity of Elizabeth's Board of 
Admiralty. To him has been ascribed by some writers, 
though with nothing like sufficient evidence, the author- 
ship of a strange anonymous letter received by Queen 
Elizabeth. Many a sounding blow had been struck at 
the sea-power of Spain during the last twenty years, 
but that power had not been crippled. The impression 



i;8 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

had become general that a crucial moment was ap- 
proaching — as indeed it was — ^when the Enghsh and the 
Spanish nations would have to fight out in the open 
this vital question of the command of the sea. It was 
this conviction that originated the proposal now made 
to the Queen: a short way with Papists. It sounds 
cruel, bloodthirsty, barbaric at this distance of time ; 
reading it, if one would see into the mind of the writer, 
he must bear in mind the aiito-de-fe, and the torture 
chambers of the Inquisition, and the horrors of the 
Spanish galleys. Froude, who tells us that he found 
the letter in the Record Office, does not attempt to give 
its author a name. It was written in a bold round hand 
by " some inspired old sea-dog." This was certainly a 
time when the sea-dogs were inspired. Drake was about 
to set out for the great voyage of circumnavigation ; he 
sailed in the following November, and returned three 
years later with his ships ballasted with Spanish 
treasure. But raid Spanish ships and Spanish colonies 
as they might, capture and destroy as they might, the 
privateers did not make any great impression on the 
vast bulk of Spain's sea-power. It was to strike a 
terrible blow at the very heart of that power that the 
author of the letter proposed. 

He wanted the Queen to provide ships enough — 
five would do if they were well armed — for an expedition 
to the banks of Newfoundland, where the Spanish 
sailors were trained in seamanship, and every winter 



THE FAVOUR OF THE QUEEN. 179 

there was a great assemblage of merchant shippmg be- 
longing to Spain and other CathoUc nations. He would, 
with his squadron, if Elizabeth would give him private 
letters of mark, take that shipping. "The best I will 
bring away, and I will burn the rest. Count us after- 
wards as pirates if you will ; but I shall ruin their sea 
forces ; for they depend on their fishermen for their 
navies. It may be objected that this will be against 
our league ; but I hold it as lawful in Christian policy 
to prevent a mischief betimes as to revenge it too late. 
... I will do it if you will allow me ; only you must 
resolve, and not delay or dally. The wings of man's 
life are plumed with the feathers of death." God him- 
self, the inspired sea-dog declared in a burst of eleva- 
tion, was a party to the quarrel, and the malicious 
enemies of Queen Elizabeth were the enemies of God. 
It was, in his view, not a cold-blooded massacre, but a 
pious emprise to put an end to 20,000 Catholic seamen, 
and cause the galleons of Spain to rot in the harbour 
of Cadiz. But such a deed would have shocked the 
world, even in that era of blood, and the offer was not 
accepted. 

The authorship of the proposal will probably re- 
main a historical problem. Hawkins was not the man ; 
he was not given to philosophising. Drake never ac- 
complished a sentence like this : " The wings of man's 
life are plumed with the feathers of death," though he 
knew the truth of it in practice. Besides, Drake at the 



i8o A SEA DOG OF DEVON 

time was intent on other business. The best guess 
seems to be that of Mr. Worth — Sir Humphry Gilbert. 
Gilbert did moralise, and he was possessed of deep 
religious sentiment. To him we are indebted for the 
poetic aphorism, "Heaven is as near by water as by 
land." There we must leave it as a documentary 
curiosity, a sign of the times, a portent of the great 
cataclysm slowly and surely drawing near. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

ELIZABETH'S BOARD OF ADMIRALTY. 

Hawkins appointed Comptroller and Treasurer of the Navy — Years 
of Grinding Slavery — Hawkins's Honesty — Making Enemies — 
His Sagacity and Prescience — Improving the Ships — Raising 
the Wages of the Men — Drake's Achievement with the Golden 
Hind — Hawkins formulates a Scheme for annoying the King 
of Spain. 

By the year 1573, Hawkins had been recognised as the 
greatest sailor of his time, as well as one of the ablest, 
astutest and most valiant of its men. In that year he 
was appointed Comptroller of the Navy, and Treasurer 
of the Queen's Majesty's Marine Causes, in succession 
to his father-in-law, Benjamin Gonson. He held office 
till after the Armada, and left his indelible mark upon 
the Navy as reformer, administrator, and mventor. Mr. 
Julian Corbett* has pointed out that when Elizabeth 
came to the throne, the Navy had vastly declined from 
the state of efficiency to which it had been brought in 
the reign of Henry VIII., when old William Hawkins 
commanded the Great Galley. During the early part 
of Elizabeth's regime, it remained inefficient : the work 

* " Drake and the Tudor Navy." 
i8i 



[82 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

of England on the seas was being done by the pri- 
vateers under such men as the Hawkinses. Compared 
with the Navy of Spain, that of England was con- 
temptible. 

" England," says Mr. Corbett, " was a first-rate 
naval Power before ever she (i.e. Elizabeth) came to 
the throne, and, after the scare which had followed the 
loss of Calais had worn itself out, the first part of her 
reign did little to increase the prestige she was heir 
to. Of her father's splendid Navy she had inherited 
little more than the ruin. Yet it must not be assumed 
that the naval policy which the first Tudors had in- 
augurated had been lost sight of by either of her pre- 
decessors." 

The last remark is true enough: we have seen how 
politeness was exacted even from King Philip. But the 
fact stands that when Elizabeth had reigned ten years 
her fleet consisted of twelve fighting ships compared 
with the fifty or sixty that her father had been able 
to place in commission. 

The approach of the conflict with Spain — it was 
felt it was in the air — rendered necessary naval organ- 
isation on a much larger and more complete scale. When 
the Queen and her Ministers cast about for a man to 
do this work, they could find no peer of John Hawkins. 
He was chosen because he was, without room for ques- 
tion, the fittest person in all the realm. The years he 
spent thereafter at the head of the Navy were years 



ELIZABETH'S BOARD OF ADMIRALTY. 183 

of terrible, grinding slavery for him, years of incessant 
devotion to the most exacting drudgery. He endured 
all like the stubborn Englishman he was. In his two 
offices of Comptroller and Treasurer, he found com- 
bined nearly the whole of the executive work now done 
by the Board of Admiralty. He had to keep the 
accounts of the fleet and all naval establishments — a 
difficult and dehcate business indeed with such a mis- 
tress as Ehzabeth. He had to manage and maintain 
the whole naval force of the nation. Were an expe- 
dition of any sort planned ? — upon Hawkins fell the task 
of estimating the cost and making the arrangements. It 
was for him to keep the naval stores in good order. It 
was his duty to superintend the building of ships, and to 
see that the crews were provided and paid. Were har- 
bour works projected ? — it was for Hawkins to report 
on them. 

It was an appaUing task, a prodigious accumulation 
of all sorts of mental labour ; it was too much for any 
one man, and it proved too much for Hawkins. He was 
not a demi-god ; he had no supernatural aids ; he was 
merely a hard, straight-ahead worker, with all the finest 
and strongest characteristics of his race highly de- 
veloped. As well as one man could discharge thi? 
labour of Hercules, he did it. He spent himself in the 
service of the Navy in a heroic spirit of self-sacrifice 
that it cannot be easy to parallel. 

He shared the duties of the Treasurership with Gon- 



1 84 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

son for a year or two, till the death of the old man. 
Then the whole work of both posts fell upon him. 
His oflice was at Deptford ; during these years his 
residence alternated between a house in St. Dunstan's- 
in-the-East and the family house at Plymouth. His 
supreme position was one in which a dishonest man, or 
a man with little of the finer scruple, might have piled 
up for himself a large fortune. John Hawkins did not 
make a penny out of it beyond his salary ; on the con- 
trary, he often had to advance money from his own 
purse for naval charges, and encountered great diffi- 
culty in the attempt to get it refunded. He was accused 
at various times of plundering the Exchequer ; but these 
charges were proved baseless.* It was Elizabeth's way 
to starve the Service, and to depend upon the Titanic 
labours of her devoted servants to supply what she left 
lacking in material provision for the defence of the 
country. She wanted the Navy improved and in- 
creased ; it was very necessary that both improvement 
and enlargement should be secured ; but at the same 
time she wanted the expenses reduced. 

The unwelcome work of detecting and checking 
abuses and preventing the leakage of money wherever 
leakage could be found devolved upon Hawkins. He 
did it, with Spartan severity ; and naturally he made a 
great many enemies in the process. Thus, at Chatham, 
he found himself in conflict with everybody in official 
* See Note C, 



ELIZABETH'S BOARD OF ADMIRALTY. 185 

position. People whom he displaced from sinecures be 
came his bitter foes. People who were living on the 
proceeds of peculation, and suddenly found the source 
of their ill-gotten supplies closed up, were envenomed 
against him. The cleansing of the Augean stable at 
Chatham was the work of fifteen months. He stuck to 
it manfully, and succeeded in" effecting an economy of 
;^3,200. Meanwhile, not only did he maintain the 
previous status of work at Chatham, but he greatly m- 
creased its volume and improved its quality. The de- 
tails are shown in his correspondence with the Judge ot 
the Admiralty. He was charged with injustice and 
deceit ; it meant that he had discovered abuses and 
quashed them. 

Throughout this rummaging into all the holes and 
corners of a neglected administration, Hawkins was no 
respecter of persons. He served high and low alike. 
From Sir William Winter to master-shipwright Baker, 
from Pett, the great ship-builder, to the humblest clerk 
or apprentice ; if he found anything suspicious in their 
dealings, or anything fishy in their accounts, he called 
them to task for it. Winter was enraged. He made 
some of the most serious of all the false charges laid 
against Hawkins. He said: "When he was hurt, m 
the Strand " (referring to the attempt on his life by 
Burchet) " and made his will, he was not able to give 
;^500. All that he is now worth hath been drawn by 
deceit from her Majesty." It was a manifest lie, for 



1 86 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Hawkins was a rich man, and owned much property 
and great interests in shipping and trade at Plymouth. 
Happily, the persons most concerned, the Queen and 
her Ministers, paid no attention to the slanders so in- 
dustriously propagated. He retained their confidence in 
the fullest degree. 

Yet all these things made Hawkins's official life any- 
thing but a siesta on a bed of roses, and things did not 
improve as the great test of his administration grew 
near. Reference has been made to his foresight. It was 
never more conspicuously displayed than in these troubled 
years. All the while he was struggling with the diffi- 
culties created by the miserly mind of the Queen, and 
the corruption at Chatham and Deptford, he looked 
forward. The great day of England's trial loomed be- 
fore his imagination and drew him to yet more strenuous 
effort. He had his eyes upon the sea and the sea-fight- 
ing that presently should be. No man in England had 
a truer conception of the reality of the political situation 
in Europe during the decade that followed the death of 
Gonson. He realised that the essence of the problem 
was sea-power, and that if the sea-power of Spain could 
not be crushed, the liberties of England and its very 
national existence were threatened. And he worked 
away doggedly, foreseeing the day of Armageddon, and 
determined that so far as he was concerned England 
should arise at the dawn of that red day prepared for 
^11 its ch&nces, a strong man armed. He ranged un- 



ELIZABETH'S BOARD OF ADMIRALTY. 187 

ceasingly from the top to the bottom of the naval ser- 
vice, making dockyard improvements, improvements 
in ships, improvements in the personnel of the fleet, im- 
provements in the armament and the equipment of all 
the maritime forces. Now and here, as ever and 
everywhere, he was the apostle of Thorough. At a 
time when his enemies were very lively in the land — 
at a much later date, when he was approaching the end 
of his career and fitting out the last expedition that he 
ever took to sea — Sir Thomas Gorges wrote of him: 
" Sir John Hawkins is an excellent man in these things ; 
he sees all things done orderly." And now, while he 
was creating the Navy that was to meet the Armada, 
John Hawkins saw " all things done orderly." 

He worked so hard, so continuously, so indefatigably, 
that he seriously impaired his own health. He fought 
against illness as he would have fought against a Span- 
iard, and worked on. The chief places of rendezvous 
for the royal ships were the Thames, the Medway, and 
the Downs. Hawkins saw what an immense waste of 
time was incurred by the absence of proper accommo- 
dation for ships of war further down the Channel. The 
scene of most of the employments of the Queen's ships 
was the coast of the enemy, or the open sea, or the far 
distant Western Continent. He recommended the for- 
mation of bases for them at the Isle of Wight, Wey- 
mouth, Dartmouth, Plymouth, and Falmouth, which 
would save the time and the cost of getting right up 



1 88 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

round the Nore for re-equipment or repairs. His policy 
in this, as in so many other matters, foreshadowed the 
practice of after years. Great developments began to 
be made immediately at Portsmouth. The dockyard at 
Plymouth (Devonport) was commenced a century later. 
Portland is now an important naval base, and both 
Dartmouth and Falmouth are extensively used by the 
smaller craft of the Navy. 

Turning his attention to the materiel of the fleet, 
he was responsible for many improvements in the de- 
sign of ships, in which, of course, he had the assistance 
of Pett and other builders. Hawkins saw Spain as the 
enemy, and he had not gathered all his experience of 
fighting the galleons of Spain for nothing. He per- 
ceived the advantage of ships that were handy and 
fast, even if they were smaller than the Spanish master- 
pieces, and of guns of long range. The fashion of naval 
construction hitherto had made the British Navy look 
like an assemblage of Chinese junks. The ships had 
great upper works, huge elevations fore and aft, and 
they were clumsy to handle. Hawkins cut them down. 
The Jesus of Lubek had been a more weatherly vessel 
after he reduced her upper-works during the gale in the 
Gulf of Mexico. He lengthened their keels, and made 
their lines finer. He improved their rig to enable them 
to haul closer to the wind. He gave them every advan- 
tage in every point of sailing over the Spanish model 
that his experience could suggest and his inventive 



ELIZABETH'S BOARD OF ADMIRALTY. 189 

genius devise. He saw that their armament was the 
best that could be obtained and the most effectively dis- 
posed. He introduced into them all the improvements 
that the lessons of his sea-life had taught him and the 
record of the privateers sanctioned. The superior sail- 
ing qualities of the English ships and their superior gun- 
ning had a great deal to do with the defeat of the 
Armada of PhiHp. Hawkins was a versatile maritime 
inventor. He devised boarding nettings. He invented 
chain pumps and introduced them into the royal ships. 
In every detail of the shipwright's craft he was 
ever looking for something better and often find- 
ing it. 

Then, as to the, men who sailed the ships and 
worked the guns : we have seen his sympathy for his 
" poor sailors." It extended impartially to all the men 
who were ever under his command or control in any 
way. He raised the pay of the seamen from six and 
eightpence to ten shillings a month: it would probably 
work out to about £4. of our money. This was a bold 
step to take with Elizabeth in her most haggling mood ; 
but he knew what it meant, and he convinced his em- 
ployers that he was right. It would bring into the 
service better men, he said ; and the better the men 
the more economically the work would be done, for 
fewer men would be required to do it. He liked to 
have decent, respectable, God-fearing sailors in his 
ships — " such," he remarked, " as could make shift for 



190 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

themselves, and keep themselves clean — without ver- 
min." In Hawkins's gospel, cleanliness was next to 
godliness ; he knew the importance of a clean bill of 
health on shipboard. He would recruit the Navy in 
the spirit in which Cromwell, at a later day, recruited his 
regiment of Ironsides. He knew the value of men of re- 
source, who would not, in a moment of difficulty when 
leaders were lacking, be nothing but a collection of 
helpless cattle. 

In a word, Hawkins got the Navy into a condition in 
which it was fit to meet anything that could be met at 
sea. It would have been bigger and better if Elizabeth 
had realised more fully the ordeal through which it must 
pass ; but so far as his financial limits would allow him, 
he made it a perfect machine. As Froude says, " when 
the moment of trial came, he sent her ships to sea in such 
a condition — hull, rigging, spars, and running rope — 
that they had no match in the world." 

Drake's star was in the ascendant in 1581. He 
had returned from his great circumnavigation, and the 
Golden Hind had been brought round to Deptford. 
The fabulous treasure that he had captured from the 
Spaniards in the Pacific was laid up in the Jewel House 
of the Tower. Hawkins felt no jealousy of the suc- 
cesses of his young kinsman, whom he had introduced 
to the art of adventure and the science of plunder in 
the Spanish Seas. He joined in the applause that 
greeted the Dragon's exploits, and reverberated 



ELIZABETH'S BOARD OF ADMIRALTY. 191 

throughout the world when the Queen went in state 
to visit the ship at Deptford, dined on board with the 
hero of the hour, and knighted him for his gallant 
services. 

Drake proposed later in the year that Hawkins 
should join him in a fresh adventure. But the 
Treasurer had worked so hard that a severe illness had 
laid him by the heels. " My sickness doth continually 
abide with me," he wrote, " and every second day I 
have a fit. If I look abroad in the air but one hour 
I can hardly recover it in six days with good order." 
Adventurers could not lack for any enterprise in which 
Drake was concerned, he thought ; but his own ability 
and state were not equal to it. His financial burdens 
from the last adventure were very heavy ; he had to 
decline the offer. He remained at his post, working 
as hard as ever after his recovery, and ever preparing 
against the great day of trial with Spain. 

In the summer of. 1584, when Drake's adventure of 
1585 was being discussed and organised, Hawkins sub- 
mitted a scheme to Cecil, the object of which was 
" strongly to annoy and offend the King of Spain, the 
mortal enemy of our religion and the present govern- 
ment of the realm of England." The black clouds were 
gathering thickly. Hawkins noted the sinister aspect 
of the heavens. He wanted to strike the first blow in 
the fight for the final supremacy of Protestantism or the 
Roman system in England. William the Silent, after 



192 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

his long, heroic maintenance of the unequal contest in 
the Netherlands, had gone to a martyr's grave, stricken 
at Delft by the hand of an assassin whom Philip had 
hired for the bloody deed at a cost of twenty-five 
thousand crowns. Philip and the Pope were plotting 
again as vigorously as ever against the excommunicated 
Elizabeth. Within a few months the danger had be- 
come so ominous that the Bond of Association was 
formed and joined by Englishmen, Catholics and Pro- 
testants alike, all over the kingdom, sworn to protect 
the Queen against attacks, to avenge her death if it 
should unhappily be encompassed by violence, and not 
to recognise Mary Queen of Scots as her successor. 
Elizabeth had been induced to lend a grudging assist- 
ance to the Dutch in their fight for liberty, and for the 
principle enunciated by WiUiam of Orange that no man 
should be molested in his religious belief, whatsoever 
it might be. English vessels were being seized and 
English seamen maltreated in Spanish harbours. 

But even now the Queen would not admit that open, 
honest war was inevitable. Everybody in England 
could see it but herself. Hawkins wanted to weaken 
the power of Spain for evil when the day of wrath 
came. So, from Deptford on the 20th of July, he ad- 
dressed his letter and enclosed his scheme to Cecil. 

He modestly set forth the reasons that in ordinary 

circumstances would incline him towards a peaceful life 

-his own comfort and his financial well-being. As a 



ELIZABETH'S BOARD OF ADMIRALTY. 193 

trader, John Hawkins might have achieved a huge for- 
tune ; had he been content to follow the more medi- 
ocre course of his brother William, as a burgess of 
Plymouth, a merchant in the mart, and a sailor in the 
easy ways of trade, he might have lived a happier life. 
But he considered " whereunto we are born, not for 
ourselves, but for the defence of the church of God, 
our prince, and our country " — a lofty ideal of civic 
conduct, which he endeavoured to follow all these 
years of tribulation, reaping a harvest of misfortune and 
chiding. This was the inspiration of his plan whereby 
the government " might, with good providence, pre- 
vent the conspiracies of our enemies." He affirmed — 
Hawkins, who had for years been wrestling with cupidity 
and niggard doles for the great service he represented — 
that he doubted nothing of " our ability in wealth, for 
I am persuaded that the substance of this realm is 
trebled in value since her Majesty's reign — God be 
glorified for it ! " It was a shrewd hit, to be followed by 
a shrewder. England did not lack ships, provisions, 
powder, armour, and all the munitions of war ; of what 
use were all these and all the wealth of England if 
they were not used when they were needed ? With an 
almost prophetic vision of the criminal miserliness of 
Elizabeth when the Spanish ships were sailing by the 
very harbours of her land, he exclaimed : 

"I read when Mahomet the Turk took that famous city of 
Constantinople, digging by the foun?iaj:ions and bottoms of 



194 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

the houses, he found such infinite treasure as the said Maho- 
met, condemning their wretchedness, wondered how this city 
would have been overcome or taken, if they had in time pro- 
vided men of war and furniture for their defence, as they 
were very well able." 

The parable was plain : If Elizabeth maintained the 
course on which she was set, if Philip of Spain should 
prove a Mahomet — as happily the monarch of the 
pie de -plomo did not prove^ie might very well dig 
in the ruins of London, and, finding it a city of in- 
finite riches, wonder however he had the good fortune 
to set foot in it. Hawkins asked pardon for dealing 
with " matters so high," but begged Cecil to ponder 
on the notes he enclosed, and judge of them by his 
great wisdom and experience. 

It was a subtle scheme. Thoroughly to understand 
it, the history of the last four years in Portugal must be 
briefly viewed. The brave, imprudent Dom Sebastian 
had been killed in battle with the Moors in Africa in 
1578, and his successor, the Cardinal Henry, died in 
the midst of disputes about the succession to his crown in 
January, 1580. Philip of Spain had bought over the 
Portuguese Cortes to the support of his pretensions, and 
had silenced the Duke of Braganza by offering him 
Brazil with the title of King. He annexed the crown 
without serious opposition. Thus began " the sixty 
years' captivity " — the sixty years of Portuguese vassal- 
age to Spain from 1580 to 1640. 



ELIZABETH'S BOARD OF ADMIRALTY. 195 

But immediately the settlement was effected, a 
pretender to the Portuguese throne arose in the 
person of Antonio, Prior of Crato, illegitimate 
offspring of Louis, Duke of Beja, and therefore 
grandson of Dom Emmanuel the Fortunate. He 
set up his standard at Santarem, proclaimed himself 
King, entered Lisbon, and struck money there. But he 
found the country cold ; it was sunk in luxury, and had 
no energy to resist the pretensions of Philip. Antonio 
could raise no effective party. Philip sent an army 
against him under the Duke of Alva, who defeated him 
at Alcantara; Antonio fled to France, and Philip was 
declared king without further opposition. The Prior of 
Crato continued to advance his claims, and endeavoured 
to enforce them with foreign assistance. In 1582, he 
attacked the Azores with a strong French fleet com- 
manded by Philip Strozzi. The French were routed in 
a battle with our old friend de Ba^an, whom we met 
at San Juan, and Antonio this time fled to England. 
Alva's expedition against him in 1581 was his last. The 
aged butcher was dragged by Philip out of his im- 
prisonment in the castle of Uzeda — where he had been 
confined soon after his return from the Low Countries 
for his concern in certain offences of his son — in order 
to conduct this campaign. The brief war against the 
Portuguese pretender was conducted with Alva's usual 
ferocity: he seized a great quantity of treasure in Lis- 
bon, and the city and its suburbs were sacked by his 



196 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

army, with the usual accompaniments. Two years later 
Alva died. 

In 1584 Dom Antonio was enjoying the shelter of 
Elizabeth's protection in England, and it is to the un- 
fortunate Prior of Crato — for every step he took was 
dogged by ill-luck — that Hawkins refers wherever he 
mentions " the King of Portugal " in the scheme sub- 
mitted to Cecil. That scheme was an alliance of the 
supporters of Antonio with the privateers of the West 
of England, and of Flushing, the Huguenots, and the 
Portuguese in the islands, in Guinea and Brazil, financed 
from England, to undertake an expedition against the 
sea-communication of Spain, and to raid its coasts. It 
was, in his opinion, " the best way to annoy the King 
of Spain without charge to her Majesty." Antonio was 
formally to declare war upon Philip, and to head the 
alliance. His letters patent were to run throughout the 
cosmopolitan fleet ; he was to appoint a deputy who 
should give licence to privateers — " to such as upon their 
own charge would serve and annoy the King of Spain 
as they might by sea and land." Antonio, in return for 
legalising the operations, was to have five or ten per 
cent, of the booty, as might be agreed. Queen Eliza- 
beth was to appoint an officer to register the privateers 
engaged in this service, who should give them permis- 
sion to use " some port of the West Countrye " as their 
headquarters, where they might lay up their ships, 
repair, victual, and sell their spoils ; out of which 



ELIZABETH'S BOARD OF ADMIRALTY. 197 

transactions the Queen was to receive five or ten 
per cent. The privateers of whatever nation would 
only be allowed to take part in the glorious enter- 
prise on condition that they engaged not to offend 
any other person but that person against whom 
King Antonio was warring ; they were not to disgorge 
their captures anywhere but in the port agreed upon, 
where would be commissioners to examine each case, 
and to restore any goods taken from nations with whom 
the King of Portugal was at peace. There was to be 
martial law for all who committed piracy. 

If these conditions were granted, Hawkins said, and 
men were allowed to enjoy what they lawfully took 
while engaged in this service, the best owners and mer- 
chant adventurers of London would join in, and the 
gentlemen of the West country would not be backward. 
He reckoned that it would be an easy matter to in- 
duce the Portuguese oversea to revolt continually, and 
make things hot for Philip in his new colonies, and the 
fisheries would afford an easy prey : 

"The islands will be s?cked, their forts defaced, and their 
brass ordnance brought awiuy. Our own people as gunners 
(whereof we have few) would be made expert, and grow in 
number ; our idle men would grow to be good men of war 
both by land and sea. 

"The coast of Spain and Portugal in all places would be 
so annoyed as to keep continual armies there would be no 
possibility ; for that of my knowledge it is trouble more tedious 
and chargeable to prepare shipping and men in those parts 
than it is with us." 



igS A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

He added that it might be advisable to work Sir 
Francis Drake's coming expedition in connection with 
this ; if Drake went under the commission of Dom 
Antonio, anything that he might do would be " law- 
ful," and the arrangement might be kept secret till 
they were ready to sail. Such a constellation of free- 
booters surely never shone in the imagination of any 
other man. If it had been got together and started upon 
the work that Hawkins proposed, no Spanish keel could 
have lived upon the seas. And yet, he pointed out, 
the King of Spain would be unable to make it a cause 
of war, because ostensibly England would not be in- 
volved. On the other hand. King Philip would probably 
be compelled to entreat her Majesty to forbid her sub- 
jects to continue in the enterprise, and to withdraw 
from those who remained in it the protection of her 
ports. But, Hawkins left it to be inferred, the damage 
would have been done ; " there will be such scarcity 
in Spain, and his coast so annoyed, as Spain never 
endured so great smart. The reason is that the greatest 
traffics of all Philip's dominions must pass to and fro 
by the seas, which will hardly escape intercepting." 

Very hardly indeed. But Elizabeth was not in the 
mood to risk such aggression ; she contented herself 
with giving Drake carte blanche, and he sailed in 1585 
for the great expedition to the West Indies, while 
Hawkins's still greater plan was shelved. 



CHAPTER XV. 

AN ADMIRALTY MEMORANDUM. 

Richard Hawkins, Sir John's Son — Commands the Duck in Drake 
and Frobisher's Fleet — Success of the Expedition — The Pope and 
Philip of Spain — Birth of the Armada — John Hawkins's Fore- 
sight — He recommends Open War against Spain — Elizabeth 
hangs back. 

Family traditions associating the Hawkins name with 
the sea service were unbroken from the time of old Master 
William Hawkins, born at the end of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, to his great-great-grandson, John, who was at 
sea in 1627 when he inherited the family estates. The 
immediate succession to the maritime glory of Sir John 
Hawkins was held by his only child Richard, the boy 
whom we have seen in the house in Kinterbury Street, 
listening to the narratives of his father's adventures on 
the Spanish Main. He was pledged to the sea ere 
even he was born, it may be said ; and during the years 
of his father's absence in the West, his tutelage was 
spent under his uncle, William. The training he had — 
first in boat-sailing in the purlieus of the Cattewater, 
then in coasting trips, or brief voyages to the neighbour- 
ing continental ports — made him an admirable seaman 

199 



200 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

before he was out of his teens. For his day and his 
surroundings, he was a youth of culture and wide 
reading, and his amiabihty and courthness became a 
proverb in after years. The pride and affection with 
which John Hawkins beheld the boy grow to a stripling 
and the stripling to a man, learned as himself in all 
the sciences and arts that might assist the making of a 
perfect sailor, brave as himself, patriotic as himself, and 
withal far more polished, were what may be imagined 
in a rather taciturn man of strong feelings. Richard 
was twenty-two when, in 1582, his father gave consent 
for his first long voyage. He set out under the general- 
ship of his uncle for a trading expedition to the West 
Indies, having command of one of the ships, and in that 
trip displayed the qualities that were afterwards to make 
him famous under the name of " the complete seaman." 

John Hawkins's scheme for an amalgamation of the 
Protestant privateers under the flag of Dom Antonio 
having been rejected, he had no compunction about 
allowing his son to accompany Drake and Frobisher in 
the expedition of 1585-6. Richard Hawkins was in 
command of the Duck, one of the twenty-five ships of 
Drake's fleet, and took part in the conquest of San 
Jago, San Domingo, Cartagena, and San Augustin — an 
excellent schooling for the role he was to play in the 
Armada fight, and in his subsequent encounters with 
the Spaniards in the Pacific. 

Hawkins, meanwhile, continued to make ready for 



AN ADMIRALTY MEMORANDUM. 201 

the war with Spain, and to urge upon the Queen and her 
Ministers the importance of consistent naval poHcy, if 
they could show consistency in nothing else. He sub- 
mitted a scheme for the future administration of the 
Navy by commissioners, suggested by his own hapless 
experience in his dual office. He kept the statistics 
of ships and their contents constantly up to date, and 
again in 1586 had been working- so laboriously thai he 
brought on another severe illness. His enemies the 
idlers and non-efficients were still busy ; he defended 
his fidelity stoutly in letters to Cecil, and justified 
every step he had taken and every penny he had 
spent. 

Drake's fleet returned from its triumphant raid upon 
the Spanish colonies in July, 1586, and Richard Hawkins 
sailed his galiot, the Duck, into Plymouth Sound with 
the rest of them. They had taken 200 brass cannon 
and 40 pieces of iron ; they had ;^6o,ooo of prize money 
— not so much as had been expected, but still, enough 
to reward their crews and give the adventurers some- 
thing. They had lost 750 men through the yellow 
fever ; but they had inflicted many a telling blow on 
Philip, and had compelled the Catholic king and his 
ally the Pope to admit that the expedition against 
heretical England which had been discussed in secret, 
and was now being prepared, would be a very serious 
business. 

John Hawkins had long realised what Elizabeth and 



202 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

her advisers failed to realise, that there must come a 
time — and that it was not far off— when all this patch- 
work of compromise would split into ribands, and the 
irresistible forces that were making for a contest at 
death-grips between the two systems they represented 
would break loose, run amok, and create havoc that 
would startle the whole world. Drake's expedition of 
1585 — auspiciously commenced with a raid upon Vig"o 
under Philip's very nose — brought matters to a crisis. 
Philip of the leaden foot had not previously moved 
in earnest. He was now impelled to action by pin- 
pricks from every side. The Pope urged him on ; his 
own Admirals urged him on. The Pope represented 
the danger and disgrace of allowmg these piratical 
heretics to wreak their will upon his coasts and his 
colonies. The Admirals talked of the honour of Spain. 
Philip had hoped to gain his end by intrigue, and in- 
trigue had broken down — year after year the hopes 
based upon the perfidy of Elizabeth's internecine 
enemies had proved the rottenest reeds. It was true 
that the Prince of Parma, who had succeeded Alva in the 
Low Countries, was apparently gaining ground and 
gradually Bringing the heretic Dutchman under his 
iron heel. But so far as England was concerned, the 
holy cause was making headway backwards. The plots 
against the life of Elizabeth were recognised, even by 
the better sort of Catholics at home, to be plots against 
the liberties of the nation : hence the Bond of Associa- 



AN ADMIRALTY MEMORANDUM. 203 

tion. Craft and Conspiracy, all the underground schemes 
had utterly failed ; Elizabeth despised them, walked 
unharmed amid Philip's armed spies, who were unnerved 
by her very boldness and contempt of personal danger ; 
Philip must at last undertake the war of invasion which 
he hated. 

He seemed to divine, if not its predestined failure, 
at least, the fact that he would gain no material bene- 
fits from it. Yet he could hold back no longer. Drake 
had settled that for him in the harbour of Vigo and in 
the islands of the West. Philip's trouble was now with 
the Pope. He saw that if events marched as his Holi- 
ness desired them to march, Spain and the power and 
dignity of its monarch would be in no sort advantaged. 
Rome would reap the benefits of a huge undertaking 
for which Spain would pay the price. Philip conse- 
quently asked for Peter's pence as well as for Peter's 
blessing upon his arms. He came to the verge of 
open quarrel with his Holiness on this point of the Papal 
contribution to the expenses of the enterprise. Sixtus V. 
did not trust Philip II. He would make no financial 
concessions, he said, till the army of Spain was landed 
upon the shores of England. He was not going to 
hand over a rich subvention for Philip to put it in his 
pocket first and choose how he should spend it after- 
wards. The mutual suspicion of the Head of the 
Church and the Catholic King was justified by events, 
and in any event must have been justified. If Philip 



204 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

had been successful, and had brought England to its 
knees, the result would have been merely to reduce 
the country to a condition of vassalage to Spain ; Mary 
Queen of Scots bequeathed her rights in the English 
Crown to Philip, and when Sixtus learnt how the cat was 
to jump, he withdrew his support ; when the Armada 
was disastrously defeated he made no attempt to con- 
ceal his satisfaction. 

For the present, however, as matters stood be- 
tween them, the Pope and the King were in agreement 
about the necessity of an attempt to reduce the heretical 
pretensions of England. Philip's personal desire would 
have been to hang back still ; but other forces 
impelled him forward. He began to collect a fleet, de- 
liberately, and to equip it, still more deliberately, with 
the idea that it should be in such overwhelming strength 
that unchallenged it might command the English seas. 
Then he might dictate what terms he pleased to the 
English people, suiting his own convenience rather than 
that of the Holy Father. The Invincible Armada was 
born. 

This, I may repeat, John Hawkins had seen in pro- 
phetic vision — not in all details, but in all essentials. 
Even now, if Elizabeth and Cecil would have listened 
to him, he would have made the sailing of the Armada 
impossible. While yet the bruit of Drake's adventures 
was echoing through Europe, the busy mind of Haw- 
kins was employed with the prospects of the coming 



AN ADMIRALTY MEMORANDUM. 205 

strife. From on board the Bonaventure on the ist of 
February, 1587, he submitted through Walsingham a 
project for scotching the Spanish snake. He had, he 
said, " of long time seen the maHcious practices of the 
Papists, combined generally throughout Christendom 
to alter the government of this realm and bring it 
to Papistry, and consequently to servitude, poverty, and 
slavery," and he delivered his mind of a scheme for 
defeating the ends of the conspirators. 

Anthony Babington's plot to murder the Queen had 
been discovered ; the complicity in it of Mary Queen of 
Scots had been proved to as full demonstration as any- 
thing of the sort could be proved. The Scots queen 
had been removed to Fotheringhay Castle, her accom- 
plices had been put to deatH, and she had faced her 
two days' trial. On the very day when Hawkins ad- 
dressed his letter to Walsingham, Elizabeth — conquer- 
ing her reluctance to shed the blood of her rival- 
signed her death warrant. A few days later Mary died, 
having committed to Philip of Spain, almost with her 
last breath, the sacred task of the destruction of the 
heretic power of England. 

Well might Hawkins animadvert upon the malicious 
" practices " of the Papists. As became good Christians, 
he declared, all Englishmen were exceedingly anxious 
to preserve peace, which was the best estate for all men. 
and he wished that by any means peace might be 
brought to pass. In his poor judgment, the right step 



2o6 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

was not taken, and the old sea-dog was not the man 
to cry peace when there was no peace. His "poor 
judgment " was confirmed by the verdict of history. 
The way in which Ehzabeth meandered, even to the very 
moment when the Armada was upon her coasts, the 
way of compromise and confabulation, was not the way 
in which to handle a question of this kind. 

" In my mind, our profit and best assurance is to 
seek our peace by a determined and resolute war ! " 
Thus Hawkins — and a notable saying, surely — an 
aphorism drawn out of the deepest heart of man's 
long experience of a state of peace which was no 
peace, both at home and overseas. War, he said — open 
war, decisive war against the malign foes of England 
now plotting in the dark against its honour, its religion, 
and its well-being — would now be less costly, it would 
now more fully assure the safety of the nation, than the 
elaborate and artificial system of public negotiations 
and privateering which Elizabeth preferred. It would 
enable them to discern friends from enemies at home 
as well as abroad, and it would best allay the growing 
fears and suspicions of the whole community. There 
was need for such discernment. It was difficult to pierce 
the miasma that again overhung the land. There were 
Catholics in open opposition to the Protestant system 
and to Elizabeth's government ; there were Catholics 
who sympathised in secret with the enemies of the queen, 
but would risk nothing openly to advance their ideal. 



AN ADMIRALTY MEMORANDUM. 207 

The report which Father Parsons, the Jesuit leader, 
wrote for the eye of the Pope, deahng with the state of 
parties in England, is sufficient evidence of the spiritual 
and political turmoil that boiled under the smooth sur- 
face contrived by Elizabeth's complicated policy of 
compromise and half-measures. Already the advice of 
Parsons was being followed ; the Armada was forming 
in the ports of Spain, the army of the Prince of Parma 
was being prepared for the crossing of the Channel. 

As for the prosecution of the war which he recom- 
mended, Hawkins advised that it should not be car- 
ried into foreign countries, except when and where 
it might be absolutely necessary for strategical pur- 
poses ; " for that breedeth great charge and no profit at 
all." He knew that England's strength was on the 
sea, and that, with the material she had for sea-fighting, 
she could hold her own. The measure of her success 
would be according to the administration of her sea- 
policy. He would blockade the coasts of Spain, harry 
the Spanish commerce, and terrorise the Spanish Navy. 
This work could be done with very little drain upon 
the resources of England : six of the best of the Queen's 
ships would suffice. And six of such ships as Hawkins 
had lately been building in the Thames could perhaps 
have done it. They should be victualled for some 
months, they should be accompanied by six smaller 
vessels to act as scouts — the little crowd of cruisers 
flitting round the battle fleet — they should haunt the 



2o8 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

coast of Spain and the islands, and be a sufficient force 
to account for any squadron, any convoy, that might 
pass to and from the Spanish harbours across its path. 
They would have to return to refit and repair : then six 
other good ships should take their place — " so should 
the seas be never unfurnished ; but, as one company at 
the four months' end doth return, the other company 
should be always in that place." 

The provision of this squadron, Hawkins pointed out, 
would not interfere with the efficiency of the home fleet, 
which would remain in strength enough to deal with 
any attempt that might be made at reprisals in Eng- 
lish waters. He sent a note of the ships which, he sug- 
gested, might be detailed for this duty, and showed 
what force would then be left to guard the interests of 
England at home. " In open and lawful warfare," he 
concluded, in sonorous phrase, " God will help us, for we 
defend the chief cause, our religion — God's own cause. 
If we would leave our profession and turn to serve Baal 
(as God forbid, and rather to die a thousand deaths) 
we might have peace — but not with God." 

Admiralty memoranda are not so couched in our 
day ; but the Protestant religion was the ideal set high 
that led on the seamen of the sixteenth century to their 
most glorious achievements, and Hawkins meant every 
word he said. As usual, Elizabeth did not seize the op- 
portunity ; even yet she believed that open hostilities 
pould be staved off. The Spanish fleet was fitting out 



AN ADMIRALTY MEMORANDUM. 209 

in the Spanish estuaries; the Fiery Cross was being 
rushed through Catholic Europe to rouse men for the 
" enterprise of England " ; but she would take no de- 
cisive step. Pin-pricks, singeing of beards, negotiation, 
compromise — these were her methods and her weapons 
still. She consented to another proposal of Drake's— 
to undertake an expedition furnished forth by the mer- 
chants of London, who provided the brilliant corsair- 
admiral with twenty-six vessels, to which Elizabeth 
added four ships of war and two pinnaces. The Bona- 
venturc, from which Hawkins had dated his letter to 
Walsingham, was one of the four, and became Drake's 
flagship. So averse was Elizabeth from acting in the 
open that Drake had almost to sneak out of Plymouth 
Sound with his expedition, bound for Cadiz and the 
singeing of Philip's beard, for fear that the Queen should 
repent of her boldness. Indeed, she did send orders 
that he was to enter no Spanish port and injure no hair 
of a Spaniard's head : they arrived at Plymouth after he 
had sailed. The story of Cadiz needs no retelling here ; 
one thing it proved — that if Hawkins's plan had been 
adopted, the Armada might never to this day have 
sailed from Spain. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE ARMADA. 

The Armada — Hawkins's Preparations — The Ships of his New Design 
— The Queen's False Economy — Waiting for the Enemy — Haw- 
kins's Enemies bark — The Armada sighted at last — Hawkins's 
Account of the Fighting. 

The Armada did sail from Spain. The day came when 

EHzabeth could temporise no longer, when guns took up 

the argument and spake to greater purpose than the lips 

of commissioners and the pens of diplomatists. The 

story of the great enterprise and its failure does not 

belong to the life of Hawkins, but to the history of 

Europe. It has been told often and eloquently on both 

sides. There is no intention of repeating it here, or of 

entering into any of its details save those in which John 

Hawkins was intimately concerned. 

A small expedition of Thomas Candish to the West 

Indies, doing a great deal of damage, Drake's exploit 

at Cadiz, and Walsingham's successful interference with 

Philip's financial schemes at Genoa prevented the 

Spanish ambition from materialising in 1587, as 

had been intended. It was postponed till wet and 

stormy 1588, the thirtieth year of Queen Elizabeth's 

:?io 



THE ARMADA. 211 

reign, the year which German astrologers had foretold 
was to be the " climacterical year " of the world. What- 
ever may be thought of that, 1588 was the dimacterical 
year of the hfe of John Hawkins, though he was still 
seven years off his grand climacteric in age. It probed 
the whole usefulness of his career. Had Hawkins been 
a hollow man, England's cause had collapsed. This was 
the test of all his achievements and all his energies — as 
an administrator, as a seaman, as a general. He was 
not found wanting. 

His great care at the end of 1587 was the perfection 
of the Navy as an instrument of war. He was so 
earnest, dogged, sincere, unsparing of himself, that, with- 
out inquiry or investigation into the character of his 
work, that nearest possible approach to perfection at 
which he aimed might have been taken for granted. 
Inquiry and investigation were not spared, however ; 
the examination into the condition of the fleet was con- 
ducted by Sir William Winter and William Holstock. 
At least one of these had no prejudice in his favour, as 
we have already noted in connection with the retrench- 
ments at Chatham ; but they reported without reserve 
that Hawkins's duties had been satisfactorily performed. 
Ere yet the Armada had sailed (in November) he made 
one more offer of personal service and individual action 
— to undertake with seventeen ships and pinnaces to 
prevent the landing of a foreign Power upon any of the 
western coasts of England. He was wanted for bigger 



212 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

things ; for the moment he could not be spared from his 
administrative office ; when it came to fighting, he was 
reserved for the command of the Navy as Vice-Admiral 
and for the task of supplying the professional defects — 
defects merely of inexperience — that underlay the mag- 
nificent qualities of the Commander-in chief, Lord 
Howard of Effingham. His present duty was to get the 
whole Navy of thirty-eight vessels in immediate condi- 
tion for sea service at any emergency. Hawkins did not 
delay. In spite of cheeseparing, his preparations were 
so complete to the minutest detail that the command 
entailed no difficulty. In the Medway lay his finest 
contributions to the naval strength of England — five 
ships, four of them built according to his new design : 

The Ark Royals 800 tons. This fine vessel 
became the flagship of Lord Howard, and the Lord 
High Admiral wrote of her to Cecil : " I praie 
your Lordship tell her Mat'^ from me that her 
money was well geven for the Arke Rawlye, for I 
think her the odd ship in the worlde for all con- 
ditions, and truely I think there can no great ship 
make me change and go out of her." 

The Yictory, 800 tons. The Victory became 
the flagship of Hawkins as Vice-Admiral. 
The Bear, 900 tons. 
The Elizabeth Jonas, 900 tons. 
The Triumph, 1,000 tons. 
Of these, the Ark Royal was the only ship not of the 



THE ARMADA. 213 

new type. She preserved, though not in the most ex- 
aggerated fashion, the characteristics of the older class 
of ships of the line — high bulwarks and tall upperworks, 
fore and aft. In an engraving to be seen in the British 
Museum she is represented as a four-masted, square- 
rigged ship, which no doubt had all the quahties claimed 
for her by Howard, and was sea-worthy enough ; but 
she had not the appearance of a very handy craft for 
rapid manoeuvring, and that was the principal advantage 
owned by her sisters. They, the other four, of equal 
and larger tonnage, had all Hawkins's improvements 
developed in their construction. Hawkins suffered the 
fate of all reformers and innovators in all time. His 
new ships were distrusted by the old school of seamen, 
and the usual adumbration of disaster was not wanting. 
So strongly was the feeling of distrust expressed that 
Elizabeth did not care to risk them at sea until they 
were absolutely required for active service, and they 
were never commissioned till 1588, though they were laid 
down several years before, and had long been completed. 
When they did go to sea they perfectly justified Haw- 
kins ; their performances bore out all his theories, and 
they were more useful than any other vessels in the 
fleet. They combined all the excellences to which allu- 
sion has been made above — fast sailing and facility of 
handling, and in their armament every improvement 
that Hawkins's long experience of sea-fighting had 
suggested. 



214 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Elizabeth continued to pare the cheese to the very 
last. Howard having- been commanded to take the 
ships to sea (the order was given in December, 1587) 
"to defend the realm against the Spaniards," the 
next month it was made known that the fleet would be 
required for no more than six weeks, as the Queen 
hoped that a peace might yet be patched up. Crews 
for the thirty-eight ships had been obtained at the cost 
of immense pains to Hawkins and his subordinates, and 
at great expense to the State. There was a rumour that 
the Armada was about to be dissipated and Philip's 
scheme abandoned ; EHzabeth dismissed half the 
sailors! Hawkins, the apostle of open and resolute 
"warre," was thrown into a state of mind that may be 
shared by any zealous officer who sees his best schemes 
running the risk of destruction through the folly of his 
employer. He declared (February, 1588): "We are 
wasting money, wasting strength, dishonouring and dis- 
crediting ourselves by our uncertain dallying." 

Then, in another fortnight, the ships were ordered to 
sea again, and the harbours of England were scraped 
for men to fill them up. Bounties and allowances had 
to be given to tempt men to serve. Wasting money, 
indeed ! The provisions for the fleet were cut down to 
the smallest possible limit. Meat was stopped ; the 
crews were fed on fish, dried peas, and oil. Howard 
ultimately collected his fleet at Plymouth, but was 
allowed no stores from which to replenish it. Some- 



THE ARMADA. 215 

times his men were without official rations for days 
together. This pohcy had its effect. The four new 
ships at Chatham could not be manned, and were 
delayed there for weeks. It was not until the Armada 
was just about to sail that they were put in commission. 
Then there was a great scurry for men and stores. Even 
so, only enough stores were contracted for to last till 
the end of June, and Philip's fleet was not in sight till 
three weeks after that. 

Leaving a squadron under Seymour to aid the 
Dutch in watching the Duke of Parma and his flat- 
bottomed boats, Howard in the Ark Royal and Hawkins 
in the Victory went round to Plymouth to join the main 
body of the royal fleet and the privateer squadron 
under Drake there assembled. 

The storm that hampered the Armada upon its first 
sailing in May, and compelled its return to port to refit, 
seemed at one time likely to be no godsend to England. 
False reports as to the nature of the impediments that 
Philip was meeting were spread ; Ehzabeth, thinking 
the Spanish fleet had been destroyed, or so seriously 
damaged that it could not possibly make the projected 
attack till the next year, again ordered reductions in the 
number of her ships in commission. Fortunately for the 
nation, Howard had better information, and refused to 
decrease his strength. Later on he had to use some 
strong language for the benefit of his royal mistress. 
Yet the policy of short commons was pursued. It is 



2i6 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

amazing that the loyalty of the commanders and the 
spirit of the men were not shaken by the extraordinary 
shilly-shallying, the niggling, narrow economies, the 
petulant nagging of the Queen. At the end of the 
first week in June the fleet had provisions for eighteen 
days. The material for re-victualling did not arrive at 
Plymouth till the 23rd ; then there were provisions for 
a month only, and they were accompanied by a declara- 
tion that no more would be sent. Rank beer killed 
many men, and made more very ill. Howard procured 
wine and arrowroot for the sick. His difficult mistress 
called him sharply to account for this expenditure after- 
wards, and to avoid a disturbance he paid the money 
from his own pocket. The Lord High Admiral made 
the best of the wretched situation. He arranged that 
the month's rations should be made to last six weeks ; 
but the quality of his temper may be seen in his note 
to the Queen on July 3rd : " For the love of Jesus 
Christ, Madam, awake and see the villainous treasons 
round about you against your Majesty and realm." 

All through the early part of July they waited for 
the approach of the Spaniards, either in harbour at 
Plymouth or cruising in the chops of the Channel, the 
fleet split into three divisions, spread out hke a fan 
between Ushant and Scilly. Howard had the biggest 
squadron in the centre ; Drake, with twenty ships and 
four or five pinnaces, saw that no Spaniard slipped up 
by the Isle of Ushant ; while Hawkins, with a similar 



THE ARMADA. 217 

force, lay out on the right wing towards the Isles of 
Scilly. A fair north wind arriving, it was decided in a 
Council of the Admirals to sail down to the Spanish 
coast, with the object of crushing the Armada before it 
could reach Enghsh waters. They were forty leagues 
off Finisterre when news was brought to Howard that 
the Spanish fleet in Corunna and elsewhere was in a 
state by no means as crippled as had been reported. 
The wind shifted to the south, and his council thought 
it well to hurry back to the Channel before the Armada 
took advantage of the same breeze. They were home 
at Plymouth on the I2fh July, and rode out there some 
very stormy weather, Howard and the big ships lying 
in the Sound, exposed to the south-wester, and the little 
ones running up the Cattewater for protection. 

At home Hawkins found that his enemies in London 
were busy with his name. The Hope, a 600-ton vessel, 
commanded by Robert Cross, had sprung a small leak, 
and had gone into port to repair. This was enough for 
the crowd of people whom Hawkins had offended ; they 
attacked his character as a naval official, and prognosti- 
cated darkly. " I have heard," wrote Howard to Wal- 
singham from Plymouth on July 1 7th, " that there is in 
London some hard speeches against Mr. Hawkins be- 
cause the Hope came in to mend a leak she had. Sir, 
I think there were never so many of the Prince's ships 
so long abroad and in such seas with such weather as 
these have had with so few leaks, and the greatest fault 



2i8 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

of the Hope came with ill grounding before our coming 
hither, and yet it is nothing to be spoken of ; it was 
such a leak that I would have gone with it to Venice." 
It was a fine retort ; Hawkins was well satisfied with a 
testimonial so thorough from the Lord High Admiral. 

Two days after the letter was written the Spanish 
Armada sighted the English shores, and Captain 
Fleming, in his pinnace, came sailing into Plymouth 
with the news of its approach. Tradition — and there is 
no other basis for the story — says that when Fleming 
ran before the south wind across the Sound with his 
intelligence, the principal commanders of the fleet were 
all ashore, and that Fleming disturbed them at a game 
of bowls upon the Hoe. Drake, according to the legend 
pictorially represented by Mr. Seymour Lucas, insisted 
on completing the match, saying that there was plenty of 
time to finish the game first and beat the Spaniards 
after. It is a good Drake story, and deserves to be true. 
We must leave it at that. In any case, it is probable 
that the Admirals and many of the commanders were 
on shore. Hawkins was at home ; his brother was 
Mayor of the town ; he would have entertained his 
friends in Kinterbury Street, no doubt ; William and 
John Hawkins had ships in the voli^nteer fleet, and 
his son Richard commanded the Swalloiu, a 300-ton 
ship of the Queen's Navy. 

No time was lost before getting ready to meet the 
Spaniards. The English Admirals had some difficulty 



THE ARMADA. 219 

in working out of the harbour in face of the wind that 
was bringing the Armada up Channel with tlieir sails 
full ; but it was accomplished by the Saturday morning. 
By three in the afternoon they were all out in the 
offing, and Howard was manoeuvring to get the wind of 
the enemy. He succeeded completely. At nine o'clock 
on Sunday morning the whole Armada was seen west- 
ward of the Eddystone Reef, forming a great half-moon 
of stately ships, in comparison with which the English fleet 
looked puny. But this had the weather berth, it had the 
faster ships, the better guns, and the most daring seamen 
From on board the Victory, on the last day of the 
month, Hawkins wrote to Walsingham an account of the 
events of that crowded ten days — succinct, characteristic, 
making little mention of his own part in them. I carry 
on the story in Hawkins's own words, and fill in the 
ellipses afterwards. 

"We met with this fleet somewhat to the Westward of 
Plymouth upon Sunday in t]?e morning, being the 21st July, 
where we had some small fight with them in the afternoon. 
By the coming aboard one of the other of the Spaniards, a 
great ship, a Biscane, spent her foremast and bowsprit, which 
was lost by the fleet in the sea, and so taken up by Sir Francis 
Drake the next morning.* The same Sunday there was, by a 

* This was the Capitana, commanded by Pedro de Waldez, and 
the mishap occurred in collision with the Santa Catalina. She had 
a large sum of money on board, and a number of jewelled swords, 
destined by Philip for the Catholic peers of England. Drake captured 
her after she had made a gallant fight, and took her into Dartmouth. 
The booty was the subject of an unedifying dispute between Drake 
and Frobisher. 



220 A SEA DOG OF DEVON 

fire chancing by a barrel of gunpowder, a great Biscane spoiled 
and abandoned, which my lord took up and sent away.* 

"The Tuesday following, athwart of Portland, we had a 
sharp and long fight with them, wherein we spent a great part 
of our powder and shot, so as it was not thought good to deal 
with them any more till that was relieved. 

"The Thursday following, by the occasion of the scattering 
of one of the great ships from the fleet which we hoped to 
have cut off, there grew a hot fray in which some store of 
powder was spent, and after that little done till we came near 
to Calais, where the fleet of Spain anchored and our fleet by 
them, and because they should not be in peace there to re- 
fresh their water or to have conference with the Duke of 
Parma's party, my lord admiral, with firing of ships, deter- 
mined to remove them, — as he did, and put them to the seas, — 
in which broil the chief galleass spoiled her rudder, and so 
rowed ashore near the town of Calais, where she was possessed 
of our men, but so aground as she could not be brought away. 

" That morning, being Monday, 29th July, we followed the 
Spaniards, and all that day had with them a long and great 
fight, wherein there was great valour shown generally of our 
company in that battle. There was spent very much of our 
powder and shot ; and so the wind began to grow westerly a 
fresh gale, and the Spaniards put themselves somewhat to the 
Northward, where we follow and keep company with them. 
In this fight there was some hurt done among the Spaniards. 
A great ship of the galleons of Portugal spoiled her rudder, 
and so the fleet left her in the sea." 

So wrote Hawkins while the wind had hardly blown 

away the powder-smoke, and the unhappy Medina 

* Oquendo's great galleon, which carried the Treasurer of the 
Fleet and 55,000 golden ducats. The disaster was attributed to the 
act of her Flemish gunner, and said to be a revenge for insults. 
It cost 200 lives. Howard took part of the money to pay his seamen, 
and was afterwards charged with peculation ! 



THE ARMADA. 221 

Sidonia's fleet was racing away to the north, teased as 
far as the Firth of Forth by the English ships which 
buzzed behind him Hke a cloud of hornets. He pro- 
ceeded to sum up the matter : 

" Our ships, God be thanked, have received little hurt, 
and are of great force to accompany them, and of such advan- 
tage that, with some continuance at the seas, and sufficiently 
provided of shot and powder, we shall be able, with God's 
favour, to weaiy them out of the seas and confound them." 

Like all other English seamen, Hawkins could not 
understand why with a force still so great, in spite of 
the damage that had been inflicted upon it, the Spanish 
Admiral turned tail and ran. 

"As I gather, certainly there are among them so forcible 
and invincible ships which consist of those that follow, — viz : 
9 galleons of Portugal of 800 tons apiece, saving two of them 
are but 400 tons apiece ; 20 great Venetians, and argosies of 
the seas within the Strait (of Gibraltar) of 800 apiece ; one 
ship of the Duke of Florence, of 800 tons ; 20 great Biscanes, 
of 500 or 600 tons ; 4 galleasses, whereof one is in France. 
There are 30 hulks and 30 other small ships, whereof little 
account is to be made. At their departing from Lisbon, being 
the 19th May, by our account they were victualled for six 
months. They stayed in the Groyne 28 days, and there re- 
freshed their water. At their coming from Lisbon, they were 
taken with a flaw, and 14 hulks or thereabouts came near 
Ushant, and so returned with contrary winds to the Groyne, 
and there met. And else there was none other company upon 
our coast before the whole fleet arrived. And in their coming 
now, a little flaw took them 50 leagues fiora the coast of Spain, 
where one great ship was severed from them, and 4 galleys, 
which hitherto have not recovered their company. 



222 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

"At their departing from Lisbon, the soldiers were 20,000, 
the mariners and others 8,000 ; so that in all they were 28,000 
men. Their commission was to confer with the Prince of 
Parma (as I learned) and then proceed to the service that 
should be there concluded. And so the Duke to return into 
Spain with these ships and mariners, the soldiers and their 
furniture being left behind. Now this fleet is here and very- 
forcible, and must be waited upon with all our force — which is 
little enough. There would (should) be an infinite quantity 
of powder and shot provided and continually sent aboard, 
without the which great hazard may grow to our country ; for 
this is the greatest and strongest combination, to my under- 
standing, that ever was gathered in Christendom. Therefore, 
I wish it of all hands to be mightily and diligently looked 
unto and cared for. 

" The men have been long unpaid, and need relief. I pray 
your lordship that the money that should have gone to Ply- 
mouth may now be sent to Dover. 

"August now Cometh in, and this coast will now spend 
ground tackle, cordage, canvas and victual, all which would be 
sent to Dover in good plenty. With these things and God's 
blessing our Kingdom may be preserved, — which being ne- 
glected, great hazard may come. I write to your lordship* 
briefly and plainly : your wisdom and experience is great. 
But this is a matter far passing all that hath been seen in 
our time, or long before. 

"And so, praying to God for a happy deliverance from 
the malicious and dangerous practice of our enemies, I 
humbly take my leave. From the sea, aboard the Victory, 
the last of July, 1588. 

" The Spaniards take their course for Scotland. My lord 

* As Hawkins explains to Walsingham in a postcript, this is a 
copy of a letter he is sending to Cecil, "whereby I shall not 
need to write to your honour. Help us with furniture, and with 
God's favour we shall confound their device," 



THE ARMADA. 22^, 

doth follow them. I doubt not, with God's favour, but we 
shall impeach their landing. There must be order for victual 
and many powder and shot to be sent after us." 

This, written " in haste and bad weather," as he in- 
forms us, was Hawkins's plain, sailor-hke dispatch an- 
nouncing the defeat of the Armada. His own part 
in the ten days' work was left for other pens to tell. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE FIGHT WITH THE SANTA ANNA. 

Perversity of the Queen's Policy — Englisfi Manoeuvring and Gunnery 
— Duel between the Santa Anna and Hawkins's Victory — The 
Spaniard surrenders — Hawkins knighted — His Division breaks 
Sidonia's Line — Flight of the Armada — Effects of the Victory — 
The Queen's Ingratitude — Plight of the English Fleet. 

By no merit in the Queen and her Ministers was the 

Spanish Armada beaten off her shores — unless it were 

a merit and a contribution to victory to starve the sailors, 

worry the admirals, and keep the guns without powder. 

The perversity of Elizabeth's policy towards the fleet 

was simply wicked. The story of those stormy July 

days is an alternation of brilliant displays of strategy 

and courage with piteous appeals for provisions and 

ammunition. While the ships were within reach of 

Plymouth, William Hawkins sent out to them what he 

could. Thereafter the power of Howard was crippled, 

and the whole cause was more than once in danger 

because the Queen had not seen fit to spend the money 

that would have provided him with what he wanted. 

On the night after the first engagement, a courier was 

despatched to London with a message praying for a 

224 



FIGHT WITH THE SANTA ANNA. 225 

supply of ammunition. " Many of our great guns stood 
as cyphers and scarecrows," said Raleigh. After the 
fight off the Isle of Wight, Howard could not engage 
the Spaniards again until they were off Calais for lack of 
powder and ball. When the worst of it was over, and 
the Spaniards were flying, the English clung to their 
heels, though their men were in rags, with just sufficient 
food to keep them alive, and no means of firing their 
guns ; they had, as Drake said, " to put on a brag, and 
go on as if we needed nothing." 

It was well for England that the Spaniards were 
ignorant of the condition of her fleet, and that they 
were commanded by Medina Sidonia, rather than by 
such a man as the captured Dom Pedro de Valdez, or 
the fiery Oquendo. The situation is reflected in Haw- 
kins's letter, written while the English were pursuing 
their beaten foe up the North Sea. Powder ! Victuals ! 
— with these things and God's blessing they might be 
able to carry the campaign to a successful issue. Eliza- 
beth apparently thought the blessing of Providence 
alone was sufficient for their subsistence. 

In the first action, off the Eddystone Reef, Hawkins, 
Drake, and Frobisher pointed up to windward so 
effectively with "their fast ships that they had no difficulty 
in keeping the weather of the Spanish line, and launch- 
ing themselves persistently at the rearmost ships under 
Recalde. The surprise of the Spanish seamen (who 

were no mean mariners) at the manner in which the 
p 



226 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

English vessels outpointed and outmanoeuvred them, 
and at the range of their guns, has been the theme of 
many pens. The damage inflicted upon the helpless 
bodies of the great galleons was enormous. Keeping 
the weather berth, the Vice-Admiral and his companions 
reached again and again across the end of the line, 
giving them broadside after broadside, and quickly 
getting out of reach of their fire. When the Enghsh 
were within range, the Spanish guns were comparatively 
harmless because of their leeward position ; as they 
heeled over to the merry south-wester, their cannon- 
balls flew innocuous over the heads of their assailants. 
The fate of the Capitana and the Santa Catalina has 
been noted. Oquendo's " great Biscane " was battered 
into a hulk. Boats were sent from other Spanish ships 
to take off the men who remained on board after the 
explosion, but they had no time to remove the wounded, 
who were lying about among the corpses on her charred 
and blood-stained decks when the English took posses- 
sion of the wreck. John Hawkins and Lord Thomas 
Howard put off in a cock-boat from the Victory the 
next morning, and went on board Oquendo's ship. 
Their examination revealed a terrible carnage, and the 
Lord High Admiral detached a small vessel to convey 
the ruins of the mighty galleon into Weymouth. 

The hottest hour that Hawkins had was in the great 
fight off the Isle of Wight on the 25th. The weather 
had fallen calm. A large galleon of Portugal, the Santa 



FIGHT WITH THE SANTA ANNA. 227 

Anna, had dropped astern of the rest of the Spanish 
fleet, and seemed to Hawkins Ukely to constitute a fair 
prize for a bold man. While the two fleets were be- 
calmed, he managed to lay the Victory alongside the 
Santa Anna, and a great duel of the sea was fought 
between them, with the Spanish ships for spectators 
on the one side and the Enghsh on the other. To the 
Spaniards, the odds all seemed to be on their side ; the 
galleon was bigger that Hawkins's flagship, and was full 
of sailors and soldiers ; the daring Englishman appeared 
to be devoting himself to destruction. There was now no 
question of superior sailing and the advantage of the 
windward berth. In the flat calm, the sails of all the 
fleets hung limp and motionless. The only mobile in- 
struments of war upon the scene — or so it seemed till it 
was proved what the arms of the English oarsmen 
could do — were the galleasses that accompanied the 
Spanish fleet. It was therefore a desperate fight at 
close quarters, and the Spaniards had no doubt of the 
success of the Santa Anna. 

They reckoned without their host ; they reckoned 
without Hawkins's superior skill and heavier metal. De 
Bagan, who had fought with him at San Juan, would 
not have been so confident. Hawkins's guns fired the 
faster, and his men were in the higher spirits. The 
two ships pounded each other with their broadsides, 
and the rattle of the small arms was incessant, till they 
were wreathed and half hidden in powder-smoke, hang- 



228 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

ing heavy in the air and floating slowly over the oily 
sea. It had appeared quite an indecisive action till 
Hawkins got the vessels locked, and the gun-fire ceased 
while he led his men up the sides of the great galleon 
with their boarding weapons, and their fierce rush 
carried everything before them. The Spanish gunners 
were driven from their guns and forced back impotent. 
The English were on the soldiers before they could 
reload their pieces, so furious was the onslaught. In a 
few minutes it was all over. To avoid further slaughter, 
the Spanish captain surrendered ; on his own quarter- 
deck, he delivered his sword to Hawkins, and the fight- 
ing ceased. Down to the deck dropped the banner of 
Spain ; a little ball was run up to the main, and 
presently the English flag was broken out. The 
men of the Victory hailed it with loud huzzas, which 
were echoed back from the EngUsh fleets. 

But the Spaniards were not content to allow so 
valuable a prize to fall to Achines without a further 
struggle. The fight was hardly over when three large 
galleys drew out from the main body of the fleet, and 
bore rapidly down, urged by their hundred sweeps, upon 
the pair that occupied the centre of this strange picture. 
It was likely 1o be awkward for Hawkins ; the galleys 
were out of range of the English fleet, and, attacking 
him from three points at once, they were pouring metal 
into him and threatening to board him before anything 
could be done, Manoeuvring was impossible ; he had 



FIGHT WITH THE SANTA ANNA. 229 

to be content with replying as the position of his guns 
would permit to the stings of the wasps humming 
around him. The English had no galleys ; but they 
were to show that the fleet was not without strong- 
armed oarsmen, and its admiral not without ingenuity. 
Howard of Effingham had the longboats of his own ship, 
the Ar^ Royal, and others dropped into the water, and 
with great labour the flagship and the Golden Lion, 
commanded by Lord Thomas Howard, were towed down 
to the scene of conflict. Firing on the Spanish gal- 
leasses as soon as they got within range, they finally 
turned the tide in favour of Hawkins, and the great 
Portugal was left to her fate. A spirited attempt had 
been made to save her, but it had failed, and the three 
galleys, sorely battered, plied their long tiers of oars to 
get out of range. 

Next day, Hawkins became Sir John Hawkins. 
Howard visited the Victory in state, and knighted the 
vice-admiral on his own quarter-deck. It was of old 
reckoned the highest honour that a man could receive 
to be knighted on the field of battle ; the knighthoods 
which Howard sparingly bestowed during the progress 
of the Armada fight were all well won, and none more 
cLrduously than that of John Hawkins. 

For Hawkins, the fireships at Calais (said to have 
been suggested by the Queen) were a reminder of his 
own experience at San Juan. The tables were now 
turned on the Spaniards full heartily, and the confusion 



230 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

occasioned by the advent of the eight blazing hulks far 
transcended, even allowing for the disparity in the 
number of ships involved, the excitement and horror of 
fire displayed by the English in the West Indies when 
this method of war had been initiated against them. 
While the great galleass, Admiral, of De Mogada went 
ashore on the sands of Calais and was assailed by Sir 
Amyas Preston in a longboat with a hundred men, while 
Drake, in the Revenge, with Fenner and the rest of the 
privateers, was setting about the Spanish fleet on the 
seaward side, Hawkins's division, led by the Victory, 
and including the Swallow, commanded by his son 
Richard, came down upon Sidonia's Hne and broke 
right through it, firing heavily and doing great damage. 
It is interesting to notice that the Swallow was the only 
English ship that received any great injury. 

This was the final discomfiture of the invaders. 
After a council of war, with Oquendo anxious to 
fight on and Florez eager to fly, they made sail for the 
north. Hawkins and Drake accompanied Howard, who 
escorted the Spaniards past the Firth of Forth to make 
sure that no landing was attempted, and the English 
then returned south. The weather was again violent, 
and they were all much fatigued and suffering badly 
from shortness of provisions when Howard anchored off 
Margate, Hawkins dropped into Harwich, and the rest 
found shelter in the Downs. The tragedy of Mar- 
gate and Harwich must be relegated to a later moment. 



FIGHT WITH THE SANTA ANNA. 231 

The campaign was over. Philip's great empresa had 
utterly failed. The Deliverance was accomplished, and 
the islanders were masters of the seas. The effect in 
England itself of the defeat of the Armada was extra- 
ordinary and wide-spreading ; it gave a tremendous 
impetus to the national spirit ; but the way in which the 
men were treated who accomplished the victory was a 
lamentable outrage. Not one of them suffered more 
than Hawkins. He had equipped the fleet and organ- 
ised the crews ; he had taken a valiant part in the 
hottest of the fighting. He was soon to know his 
reward. 

It has been said that at this period love of Queen 
and country was a romantic passion among every rank 
of Englishmen. It was all that, and something more. 
It was a complete devotion to a high ideal. England, 
the English system, the English faith — all that the 
word England represented — as it appeared to the Eliza- 
bethan sailors and soldiers, statesmen and poets, was a 
light set on high to illumine a dark world, a beacon to 
which all the forces of progress might rally, a torch of 
freedom — freedom of mind, political freedom in a higher 
form than had been known since the Renaissance began, 
a degree of religious freedom high for the age. Above 
all, they were devoted to the resolute maintenance of 
national independence. National solidarity became a 
fact ; national interests were unified ; national heroes 
were elected. The atmosphere of the time favoured the 



232 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

development of the enthusiasm for adventure and dis- 
covery, and encouraged daring exploration in hitherto 
unknown worlds, widening knowledge and increasing 
wealth. 

It was in these conditions that the great Eliza- 
bethan literature grew. The men who had made the old 
maps useless, and disclosed new fields whence the trader 
might draw new riches, the soldier new glory, and the 
poet new figures, were the men who had also opened the 
new social vista, along which eager eyes now wandered, 
by crushing ultramontane plots and destroying the 
aspirations of ecclesiastical tyrants, lay and clerical ; 
who had released the nation, finally as it seemed, from 
the dread terror of a renewal of the priestly domination. 
They let in the bright light in which, for the remainder 
of the reign, English society developed and EngHsh 
literature flourished ; they prised open the secrets of 
a new world in more than the bare material sense. 
They freed not only the limbs of Englishmen ; not 
only did they free the seas to English keels ; their be- 
quest to the nation was beyond all measure of price. 
A glorious wave of progress in commerce, industry and 
the arts began with the destruction of the Armada and 
the overthrow of the obstacles that had held men's 
minds in the chains of serfdom, limiting their freedom 
of action, and checking by fire and sword all movement 
towards freedom of the intellect. 

This is not too wide a view to take of the work of 



FIGHT WITH THE SANTA ANNA. 233 

the seamen of England. But these men, loyal in the 
most perfect and honourable sense, devoted as they were 
to the national ideals, praying for the unity of the nation, 
and calling down confusion upon the heads of its 
enemies, were abominably treated by the Queen they 
served so zealously and honoured with an almost re- 
ligious veneration. It speaks eloquently for the exalted 
spirit of the age that badgered and abused commanders 
did little more than grumble under their breath, that 
starving and half-naked sailors did not mutiny. 

Hawkins, for a long time after this supreme effort 
had been expended, was the very picture of a good 
man struggling with adversity. He had exhausted him- 
self, soul, mind, and body, in the public service. If he 
was not actually spurned by the Queen and her Min- 
isters, his life was made a torment to him by neglect 
and lack of consideration, and by the callous manner 
in which impossible tasks were imposed on him and 
censure was administered because they proved im- 
possible. 

When the English had chased the Armada past the 
Firth of Forth, and the danger was over, their fleet 
was in piteous pHght for lack of provisions and cloth- 
ing. They had been fighting and pursuing for near 
three weeks ; they were weary, battered, storm-tossed. 
The victuals distributed at Plymouth on the 23rd of 
June had been made to last seven weeks. The con- 
dition of Howard's men was nearly as bad as that 



234 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

of Medina Sidonia's, harassed by the enemy, driven 
ashore by the gale, made prisoners in Scotland or mur- 
dered in Ireland. The exceptions were that they were 
not on a hostile coast, that their ships were in perfect 
sea-trim thanks to Hawkins's long endeavours, and that 
they were exceptionally good seamen. The storm in 
the North Sea increased as they beat back southward, 
and before they could reach the mouth of the Thames the 
weather was so violent that the fleet became separated. 
Howard reached Margate, and Hawkins with his divi- 
sion, as already stated, went into Harwich. 

On the gth of August, when they got food, three 
days' rations given out as they turned back from the 
Scottish coast had been made to serve for over a week. 
The men were weak and wretched. The bad beer 
which had 3one so much damage at Plymouth was their 
only beverage ; combined with short rations of salt beef 
and fish it produced an epidemic of sickness. At Mar- 
gate, sailors were conveyed ashore and laid down in the 
streets to finish their mortal careers ; there was no 
place in the town where they could be bestowed when 
all the barns and outhouses had been filled up with in- 
valids. Howard and his officers were stricken with 
hopeless sorrow, having to look vainly on while their 
brave fellows perished like poisoned rats. Writing to 
Burghley on the 20th of August, Howard said, " It would 
grieve any man's heart to see men who had served so 
valiantly die so miserably." Thus England rewarded 



FIGHT WITH THE SANTA ANNA. 235 

her heroes — did not pay them, did not feed them. The 
fever that took them to-day carried them off to-morrow ; 
an immensely greater number died from this avoidable 
cause after the war was over than had fallen in the 
fighting with the Spaniards. 

There never was a greater scandal in the conduct 
of any war than this. The Queen and Government did 
little to secure the victory that saved England ; on the 
contrary they did what folly and cupidity could do to 
defeat their own cause. To the courage and devotion 
of the commanders and seamen alone did the nation owe 
the Great Deliverance. A sinister aspect is given to 
the attitude of the authorities towards the naval service 
in a letter from Hawkins that will call for more de- 
tailed consideration presently. He wrote to Cecil 
(August 26th): "Your Lordship may think that by 
death, discharging of sick, etc., something may be 
spared in the general pay. Those that died — their 
friends require their pay. For those which are dis- 
charged, we take on fresh men, which breeds a far 
greater charge." In the hour of victory, Elizabeth's 
principal thought was how much she could save by the 
death of the men, who, after gaining that victory, had 
been poisoned by villainous contractors, and starved 
by her own parsimony. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

FIGURES. 

Howard's Report to Cecil— Cecil worries Hawkins — Hawkins's 
Care for the Seaman — Origin of the Greenwich Hospital 
Fund, and of the Chatham Hospital — A Raid on the Spanish 
Coast — Richard Hawkins commands the Dainty — Meagre Results 
of the Expedition — Capture of the Madre de Dies. 

Some insight has already been obtained into the nature 
of the office held by Hawkins as Controller and 
Treasurer of the fleet, the troubles and difficulties with 
which he was constantly confronted, and the inroads 
made upon his private purse by the demands of the ser- 
vice with which Elizabeth would not comply. Some- 
thing has also been seen of the wavering, vacillating 
policy adopted in the months that preceded the Armada 
fight — the commissioning and laying up of ships, the 
engagement and discharge of sailors, the confusion 
into which the preparations were thrown. A great 
financial expert, with nothing else to do in life and a 
large staff to assist him, would have found the Treasurer- 
ship a sufficient burden. Hawkins was not only 
treasurer, but constructor, controller, and fighting ad- 
miral. When the intricacies of the Queen's policy had 

236 



FIGURES. 237 

tangled the naval accounts into an inextricable knot, 
Hawkins was called upon to take the Victory to sea 
and do the " donkey-work " for Howard. He did it 
right willingly, for seamanship and sea-fighting were his 
metier. But after a month's interlude, during which his 
distinguished skill and bravery earned him a knight- 
hood, the web of the Treasurership began to close in 
upon him again. It was long before he emerged from 
the tangle that had been worked up for him by no 
fault of his own, in omission or commission, but by the 
follies of other people. 

When Hawkins sailed into Harwich on his return 
from the north, on the 8th of August, 1588, he had with 
him nine of the Queen's ships, nine of the London 
privateers, three of the Plymouth contingent, two of the 
Dartmouth vessels, and a dozen others. They found 
some hoys there with bread and beer, and more victual- 
ling vessels arrived during the day. These Hawkins was 
to convoy to Howard's squadron. Within a few days he 
had seen the supplies to their destination. The weather 
continued wild. The ships at Margate had difficulty in 
communicating with the shore, and a part of th'em, in- 
cluding the Ark Royal and the Victory, went to Dover 
Roads. There, too, they experienced trouble in vic- 
tualling the ships ; small craft could hardly ply about 
the fleet for the violence of the wind and the force of 
the tides. 

On August 24th, Cecil wrote to Howard re- 



238 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

quiring to be informed what number of mariners and 
soldiers were borne on the books of the fleet. Howard 
turned to Hawkins for the information, and on the 26th 
called him and Winter on board the flagship to ad- 
vise. As the result of the interview, Hawkins wrote 
to Cecil the same day pointing out the difficulty of 
obtaining exact figures at that moment, with the south- 
westerly gale raging and the fleet divided. He stated 
that he and Drake on their own responsibility had dis- 
charged and sent home many of the ships of the Western 
volunteer fleet — an exercise in economy which had some- 
what displeased Howard. He could not submit closer 
particulars of the numbers of men that were in her 
Majesty's pay than he had sent from Plymouth. He 
had then asked for ;^ 19,000, which would have brought 
the pay of the men up to the 28th of July. But that 
sum did not include many of the " voluntary ships " that 
had joined in the operations with the consent and by 
warrant of tlie Privy Council. He added a few unim- 
portant details which he had been able to gather, and 
promised a fuller report when the weather should mod- 
erate. 

Howard appended to the letter a memorandum, ob- 
serving that Hawkins could do no more. As to the 
payment of the men who had done the Armada work, 
" God knoweth how they shall be paid except her 
Majesty have some consideration on them." A pretty 
exclamation to force a victorious Admiral to make about 



FIGURES. 339 

the men he had led to triumph! If he had to take 
money from his own purse (as, in fact, he did), Howard 
said he would see them paid. 

But before this letter had reached him, Cecil 
was writing again to Hawkins in a querulous spirit of 
complaint. " I am sorry," said Sir John, replying to 
him, " I do live so long to receive so sharp a letter from 
your lordship, considering how carefully I take care to 
do all for the best and to cease charge." His one desire, 
he proclaimed, was to get this account square, and 
when that was done he hoped he would be relieved of 
the terrible duties of his offices. " I trust you will so 
provide for me that I shall never meddle with such 
intricate matters more. ... If I had any enemy, I would 
wish him no more harm than the course of my trouble- 
some and painful life." It was a pathetic condition of 
mind for such a man with such a record. But Hawkins 
knew that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly up- 
ward : " hereunto, and to God's good providence, we are 
born.' He had shown the letter from Cecil to Howard 
and Winter ; they, he said, were best able to ludge of 
his care and painful travail, and of the efforts he was 
making ro reduce the cost of the fleet. Elizabeth and the 
Council wanted impossibilities ; they wanted not only 
to avoid the payment of the Navy for the work it had 
done, but also to reduce the current charges to a small 
minimum at once. Hawkins showed that the fleet had 
been decimated by the sickness caused by neglect and 



240 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

ill-treatment, and it was not possible to maintain the 
ships without engaging fresh men. Some, it was said, 
were left with hardly enough rags of a crew to lift 
anchor. 

They continued to worry Sir John. They wanted 
statistics which, owing to the wobbling policy of the 
early year, it was impossible to gather ; they wanted 
vouchers for everything. Until the first week in Sep- 
tember, the fleet did not reassemble after its dispersal. 
The ships were all gathered in the Downs on the fifth 
of that month. Hawkins at once ferried from ship to 
ship, collecting the particulars that were wanted, and the 
same day sent word to Cecil that about 4,300 men 
were in the vessels still in commission. The burden of 
his life, adding the importunities of officers to the de- 
mands of the Government for greater economy, was be- 
coming intolerable. " I would to God," he cried, in a 
letter to Walsingham, " I were delivered of the dealing 
for money." He was doing what man could do to get 
the crooked business straight, but he had no confidence 
that his protestations would be believed : he had painful 
experience of the lot of one who served a Queen who 
knew good men, but knew not how good men should be 
treated. 

The completeness of the disaster that had attended 
Philip's enterprise was not reahsed by the Council, and 
Sir John had to point out how perilous it would be to 
allow the fleet to undertake any further operations in 



FIGURES. 241 

its present state. The ships wanted overhauling, re- 
provisioning, fresh manning. If EHzabeth wanted to 
put an end to the drain upon the Treasury, the way to 
do it was to lay up the ships and do all that was neces- 
sary to make them fit for service, to select vessels and 
men for a blockade of the Spanish coast, with raids on 
Spanish shipping, as he had suggested nearly a year 
before. In December, Edward Fenton, his brother-in- 
law, was appointed deputy to Hawkins, in order that 
the Treasurer might have more leisure to wrestle with 
the accounts. In eight months of laborious applica- 
tion he completed the task. 

Everything was then made up to the previous 
December, and not a flaw could be discovered in 
Hawkins's honest dealing. A rogue would have made 
himself a wealthy man ; Hawkins had laid a heavy 
hand on roguery wherever he found it, and had lost a 
great deal of money himself. When funds were not 
forthcoming for necessary things, he dipped into his 
own fortune: in thirteen years, from 1577 to 1590, he 
paid out of his pocket ^^9,659. " Continual thral- 
dom," he called it, renewing his appeal to be released 
from office, but without avail. 

Sir John Hawkins did not, however, allow himself 
to be obsessed by the wretched business of pulling 
the Navy accounts straight and endeavouring to get 
back the money that the Government owed to him. 
He was ever a friend of poor sailors, and one of his 

Q 



242 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

first proceedings after the Armada had been disposed 
of was to consider what could be done permanently 
to benefit the men who were disabled in the sea ser- 
vice. Although the loss of life by fighting in the con- 
test with the Spaniards had not been heavy, and the 
proportion of wounded men was not great, the casual- 
ties were sufficient to direct a practical mind like that 
of Hawkins into the path of practical benevolence. 

Two important naval institutions had their birth 
in his fatherly care for his mariners at this time. The 
first was the Greenwich Hospital Fund, which origin- 
ated in " the Chest at Chatham," founded at the end 
of 1588 by Hawkins and Drake for the benefit of those 
seamen who had been wounded or incapacitated in the 
Armada, and of all seamen in the royal service who 
might thereafter be disabled while performing their 
duty. The idea was that seamen and shipwrights 
should every month voluntarily set aside a part of their 
pay as a contribution to the fund. It was put into 
practice for a long time, and incorporated with the 
Greenwich Hospital Fund when the royal palace by the 
riverside was appropriated to the purposes of a home 
for disabled seamen, long afterwards. 

The business-like bent of Sir John Hawkins's mind 
is finely displayed in the establishment of the Chatham 
Chest ; his personal generosity in the second of the 
two institutions referred to — the hospital at Chatham 
which he founded and endowed for the accommoda- 



FIGURES. 243 

tion of poor decayed mariners and shipwrights. Ac- 
cording to Hasted's " Kent," an inscription cut in the 
wall shows that the building was completed in 1592. 
A charter, still preserved, was granted to the charity by 
Queen Elizabeth in 1594. It defines the position of 
" the governors of the hospital of Sir John Hawkins, 
Knight, in Chatham." The number of governors was 
to be twenty-six, and at their head, "the Archbishop 
of Canterbury, the Bishop of Rochester, the Lord High 
Admiral, the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, the 
Dean of Rochester, the Treasurer, the Comptroller, 
Surveyor, and Clerk of Accounts of the Navy, six 
principal masters of mariners, two principal shipwrights, 
the Master and Wardens of Trinity House for the time 
being, and their successors," etc. The founder con- 
veyed land and tithes for the endowment of the hos- 
pital. During his life he retained the right of appoint- 
ing the beneficiaries ; after his death the governors 
inherited it. No person could be received into the 
place who had not been "maimed, disabled, or brought 
to poverty," while in the naval service of England. 
There was accommodation for twelve pensioners, each of 
whom received a gratuity of two shillings a week. 
These were the inscriptions on the gate : on the outer 
side, " The poor you shall always have with you, to 
whom ye may do good if ye will " ; and on the inner 
side, " Because there shall be ever some poor in the 
land, therefore I command thee, saying. Thou shalt 



244 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

open thine hand unto thy brother that is needy and poor 
in the land." The oak chest in which the Charter is 
preserved bears the arms of Hawkins. 

In a character sketch in contrast between Hawkins 
and Drake, an anonymous contemporary left a picture 
of Hawkins which cannot be accepted without a 
good deal of reserve, for it describes him as 
" passing sparing, indeed miserable." No doubt his 
commercial training had made him careful of the 
guineas ; but he was not miserly. These instances of 
his generosity towards poor seamen, and the state 
which, as we have seen, he kept on the Jesus of Lubek, 
are sufficient evidence to disprove the charge. 

We hark back to 1588 — Hawkins struggling to hew 
some semblance of shapeliness out of an ugly mountain 
of figures, and longing all the time to be at sea. Sir 
John's son, Richard, was contemplating a voyage to 
the South Seas, examining and surveying unknown 
lands, and returning by Japan, China, and the East 
Indies ; incidentally, he proposed to despoil King Philip 
of such treasure as might be met with, according to 
precedent now well established. He laid down in the 
Thames at the end of 1588 a large ship of between 
300 and 400 tons, intended to take him upon this ad- 
venture. The design and construction were carried out 
under the immediate supervision of father and son, and 
embodied their ideal of a good ship. When finished, 
she was, as Richard said, " pleasing to the eye, profitable 



FIGURES. 245 

for stowage, good of sail, and well-conditioned." But 
this celebrated vessel never brought anything but dis- 
aster to the Hawkinses ; it was in her that Richard 
carried out his unfortunate voyage to the Pacific ; it 
was to release or avenge his son, captured by the 
Spaniards while fighting in her, that John Hawkins 
set out on his last fatal adventure. 

The ship was launched by Lady Hawkins, and to 
the consternation of everybody concerned, and particu- 
larly of Richard, she named her the Repentance. An 
uncouth name, exclaimed her son, expostulating with 
her ; but Lady Hawkins replied that " repentance was 
the safest ship they could sail in to purchase the haven 
of Heaven." She did not retain the title long. Pass- 
ing in her barge to the palace of Greenwich one day, 
Queen Elizabeth saw the beautiful ship riding at anchor 
in the river, and desired to be rowed round her. From 
post to stem and waterhne to truck, everything pleased 
the Queen but the name ; imperiously she declared 
that she would christen the ship anew, and named her 
the Dainty. 

Richard commanded the Dainty in the next expe- 
dition organised by Sir John — a raid on the coast of 
Spain. The Admiral had been expecting to start in 
1589, and had made much preparation at great expense, 
with the usual result, that he was delayed for a year. 
He could not get out of Elizabeth what she owed him 
— over i^2,ooo in connection with the Armada expenses, 



246 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

£y,000 his share of the last adventure with Drake, and 
£y<:>0 in connection with the equipment of the Repent- 
ance; nor could he get his warrant for the new voyage 
till the following May (1590). The Queen's commission 
then granted authorised him to press and take up men 
for her service, for manning his own ship the Mary Rose, 
and the remainder of the fleet of fourteen vessels pro- 
vided, one division being under the command of Haw- 
kins himself and the other under Sir Martin Frobisher, 
in the Revenge. It was stipulated that he should not 
make aggression against the ships of any Power with 
which England was on terms of friendship. 

The voyage, which commenced towards the close of 
the summer, was not highly successful. The project 
was to intercept the Plate fleet, but the Spaniards had 
warning of that intention, and were able to avoid 
the English force by keeping their treasure ships on the 
other side of the Atlantic. In vain did Hawkins he 
in wait for them at Flores. That western sentinel of 
the Azores afforded him excellent shelter for his ships, 
but no Spaniards came by. The fleet returned to 
England in December, carrying in to Dartmouth the 
only vessel that had been captured, and the financial 
results of the enterprise were not so large as had been 
expected. The fate of the Armada had made the 
Spaniards timorous about meeting the English at sea. 
For the most part they kept in harbour 

The one great chance that the English had was 



FIGURES. 247 

not taken. It was in this way — the story is related 
by Richard Hawkins. The fleet was off Fniisterre one 
morning, when hove in sight eight Spanish men-of- 
war, taking ammunition and provisions to the Due de 
Mercoeur, then engaged in hostihties with Henry IV. 
in Brittany. The Vice-admiral, Frobisher — and ap- 
parently this was contrary to Sir John's orders — was 
some twelve or fifteen miles ahead of the Admiral's 
division at the time. Frobisher gave chase, and the 
Spaniards fled, making for the harbour of Mungia 
(Mugia, a few miles from Finisterre). Richard 
Hawkins almost came up with the particular vessel he 
was pursuing, but the whole eight of them got clean 
away in the end. There was, however, some pretty 
smart fighting, and the Spaniards lost 200 men. 
Richard declared, with filial loyalty, that if Frobisher 
had been in his place, and the operations had been 
under the direction of Sir John, the result would have 
been different. It is impossible to estimate the chances 
on the evidence that exists. The fact remains that 
Hawkins was criticised on account of the meagre har- 
vest he brought home. He told Elizabeth that "Paul 
doth plant, Apollo doth water; but God giveth the 
increase." The Queen's retort was full-bodied, even for 
the taste of the time : " God's death ! This fool went 
out a soldier and is come home a divine ! " 

There were some disputes about the division of the 
spoils on board the Biscayan, which had been taken into 



248 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Dartmouth, and in 1592 the quarrel was renewed when 
the Madre de Dios, the largest prize ever brought to 
England, was sailed into the same port. Hawkins had 
a share in the famous expedition that resulted in this 
capture, the profits of which were rumoured to be 
£^500,000, and were certainly well over ;£": 50,000. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE DAINTY. 

Bereavements — Richard Hawkins commands an Expedition to the 
West Indies — The Dainty attacl^ed by a Fleet — Her Surrender 
upon Terms — The Terms violated — Sir John's Distress at his 
Son's Captivity — He runs an Expedition of Relief or Revenge — 
A Difference between Hawkins and Drake — The Fleet sets sail. 

Many events were crowded into the seven years of 
Hawkins's life after the defeat of the Armada. They 
were hardly happy years. Personal sorrows visited 
him in the death of his brother WilHam, to whose 
memory he erected a monument in Deptford Church, 
and, in 1591, in the death of his wife Katharine. He 
married again. His second wife, Margaret, one of the 
Queen's women of the bedchamber, daughter of Charles 
Vaughan, of Hergest, was, however, in poor health, and 
was always practically a prisoner in her house at Dept- 
ford, though she survived him twenty years. The last 
great blow was to fall in 1593. 

Hawkins had obtained for his son Richard a com- 
mission from the Queen for a voyage with " ship, bark, 
and pinnance " to the West Indies and the South Seas. 

The Dainty, it will be remembered, had been built for 

249 



250 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

that purpose. The adventurers were to have all they 
could take from King Philip, vv^ith the usual reservation 
that one-fifth of the treasure, jewels, and pearls should 
be given to the Queen. 

The delays were more vexatious even than before. 
There was talk of an expedition to Nombre de Dios 
and across the Isthmus to Panama, to capture the 
treasure train ; a great deal of sucli talk had come to 
nothing. Plenty of time was given for the surreptitious 
friends of Phihp in England to communicate to Spain 
all the details of young Hawkins's proposal and his 
equipment. PKilip sent messengers of warning West to 
prepare his representatives in the islands and on the 
Continent for the coming of the Englishmen, who di;i 
not start till the summer of 1593. The Dainty was 
prepared in the Thames, and taken down Channel to 
Plymouth, where the other ships were waiting. Of 
these, the Fancy was commanded by Captain Robert 
Tharlton ; the Hawke and the pinnace were both con- 
tributed by Richard Hawkins, in addition to the Dainty. 
A May gale rooted the mainmast out of the big ship 
and drove the pinnace ashore in the Sound, and a fort- 
night was occupied in repairing damages. Friends told 
Richard Hawkins that these were ill omens ; his wife — 
his " truest friend and second self " — seemed to have a 
presentiment of the evil to follow ; with tears she begged 
him to abandon the voyage or send some other mariner 
in his stead. But this was an affair of notoriety all 



THE DAINTY. 251 

over England ; many eyes were upon him, and he " shut 
the door of all impediment " and closed his ears against 
all contrary counsel. 

Richard Hawkins — the " Almirante Ricardo " of the 
Spaniards — was as popular a personage in Plymouth 
as his father had been. He was a freeman of the town, 
a member of the commonalty, a contributor to all local 
causes, and had recently provided " four demy-culverins 
and three sakers " for the defences of the town. Not 
merely for his gifts of nine-pounders and five-pounders, 
not only for his public merit in other respects was 
Captain Richard beloved ; he was as genial and delight- 
ful as a brave man and a skilled seaman and a daring 
soldier could be. All Plymouth went to the Hoe on the 
afternoon of the 12th of June, when he passed out, 
not to return again for close upon ten years. They 
gathered " to show their grateful correspondency of the 
love and zeal which I, my father, and our predecessors 
have ever borne to that place as to our natural 
and mother town." With blowing of trumpets and 
firing of artillery from ship and shore they made 
their way across the Sound, and the last echoes 
of the impressive farewell did not die away till 
night fell. 

The voyage was unlucky from the first. The 
Spaniards had been warned and were wary, and only 
tolerable success in the capture of prizes met them all 
the way across the Atlantic and South to the River 



252 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Plate. At a Brazilian port, they tried without success 
the trading tactics which Sir John had introduced at 
Burboroata twenty years before. Off the mouth of the 
Plate, Tharlton, in the Fancy, deserted and returned to 
England. As the Hawke had been found an incum- 
brance, and they had burnt her, Hawkins was now left 
with only one ship and a pinnace to accomplish the 
rest of his long and perilous voyage. He said some 
short sentences about Tharlton, and went on to the 
south. He rediscovered the Falkland Islands, which 
had been found previously — though the fact was un- 
known to him — by Davis. He named the place " Haw- 
kins's Maiden-Land " — " for that it was discovered in 
the reign of Queen EHzabeth, my sovereign lady and 
mistress and a maiden queen, and at my cost and ad- 
venture, in perpetual memory of her chastity and re- 
membrance of my endeavours." He sailed through 
the Straits of Magellan, and up the Pacific coast of 
America, making some captures in the port of Valpar- 
aiso. News of Hawkins's presence on the coast was 
circulated rapidly, and, a squadron of six ships sent 
against him having failed ignominiously to take the 
Dainty, a squadron of eight, with 1,500 men under Don 
Beltran de Castro, was despatched. Hawkins had 
seventy-five men, all told. The fight that followed was 
probably, next to that of the Revenge under Grenville, 
the most desperate one-sided conflict in all the history 
of sea-fighting. For three days and three nights the 



THE DAINTY. 253 

doomed ship Dainty sustained a continual bombard- 
ment of great guns and a ceaseless fusiladc of musketry. 
Attempt after attempt to board and take the vessel was 
beaten off with great gallantry. Hawkins was himself 
wounded in six places on the first day, and two of his 
hurts were serious. 

The captain of the Dainty urged him to surrender, 
the odds being so great and their numbers Httle by httle 
decreasing. Hawkins indignantly declined to con- 
sider the suggestion. He recalled to him the fact that 
many Englishmen who had surrendered to the Spaniards 
had been treacherously treated. He reminded him of 
the great betrayal at San Juan, and of the fate of John 
Oxenham and his men, who, having surrendered upon 
a compromise, were taken to Lima and hanged for 
pirates. He urged " constancy " — " Let us as Englishmen 
sell our lives dearly in battle rather than die the death 
that the Inquisition may decree." Catching the spirit 
of his leader, the Dainty s captain vowed to fight it 
out ; the men were heartened by the courage of their 
officers. Night brought no cessation of the struggle : 
only at dawn the combatants drew breath while they 
took counsel for another deadly day's work. For 
another day and night, and yet another day, the can- 
nonade went on. The Dainty's sails were torn to 
shreds, her masts were disabled, her pumps were shot 
to pieces, she had fourteen shots below the water-line, 
and seven or eight feet of water in her hold. About 



254 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

thirty of her men had been killed, and nearly all the 
rest were wounded. Then Hawkins gave consent to 
surrender before the ship went down. He stipulated 
for the lives and liberties of all his men ; on that con- 
dition only was the surrender given ; " otherwise we 
would die fighting." The Spanish Admiral sent Haw- 
kins his glove as a pledge that they should be re- 
ceived a biiena gnerra, and swore that they should be 
sent as speedily as possible into England. 

Doubtless Don Beltran meant what he said. He 
received Hawkins with Castilian courtesy, accommo- 
dating him in his own cabin, and did what he could to 
ease the sufferings of the men. So they were carried 
into Panama. There Don Beltran was able to show one 
of the letters that had unfolded Hawkins's scheme to 
Philip before the expedition started. The Spaniard 
treated the redoubtable " Ricardo " with kindness, as 
befitted the conqueror in a fight so uneven, a fight of 
which Sir John must have read the story with a tingling 
of the blood. Don Beltran's prisoner on parole was 
far too badly hurt to be able to write himself, but he 
dictated to his servant an account of what had hap- 
pened, for transmission to his father. Thus the news be- 
came known in England. The prisoners were taken to 
Lima. Gradually it appeared that the Spanish authori- 
ties did not intend to keep Don Beltran's promise to 
release them. 

When this was made clear to the eyes of those 



THE DAINTY. 255 

at home, the old man was deeply affected. He could 
endure no longer the torments of his official life. Mis- 
fortune had dogged his latter days. This final blow at 
him through the person of his only son was more than 
he could bear in a state of inaction. Prompted by 
the thought that Richard was possibly in the hands 
of the Inquisition, remembering San Juan and what 
had happened to some of his men who had been left 
with the Spaniards there, and especially to his own 
master, Robert Barret, realising the torture that this 
thing meant for his son's wife Judith at Plymouth — 
he planned his last expedition. He would take a large 
force, see whether he could not compel the King of 
Spain to keep the promise of his representative, and, if 
not, take vengeance in his own way. Drake joined him. 
The idea was approved by the Queen and the Privy 
Council, and it soon began to excite men's minds very 
highly throughout the country. It was the talk of all 
the sea-ports and the theme of the balladists, who 
urged the adventurous youth of England to join her 
" Nestor and Neptune " in this enterprise. This very 
year had been published Spenser's picture of Hawkins 
in Colin Clout's account of his excursion into the great 
world of London: 

"And Proteus eke with him does drive his herd 
Of stinking seals and porpoises together ; 
With hoary head and dewy-dropping beard, 
Compelling them which way he list and whether." 



256 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Very minor poets celebrated him also. " The Trum- 
pet of Fame," an exceedingly curious pamphlet in rhyme, 
was published while the fleet was fitting out. It had 
for a secondary title, " Sir Francis Drake's and Sir John 
Hawkins's Farewell : With an encouragement to all 
Sailors and Soldiers that are minded to go in this 
worthy enterprise. With the names of many ships, and 
what they have done against our foes." It appealed 
for support for the adventurers in this fashion : 

" Drake, conquering Drake . . . 
A friend to friends, a scourge unto the foe, 
A plague for those that wish sweet England's woe. 

" Be forward, then, and joy in this brave Knight, 
That never yet received foil in fight ; 
But still return'd with fame and wealth away. 
In spite of those that would the same gainsay. 

" And Hawkins, in this action his compeer. 
Full well is known a famous cavalier. 
Whose valour shown, and service often done, 
With good success immortal fame hath won." 

The notes of the " Trumpet " are something throaty ; 
they are re-sounded to show the character of the in- 
terest excited by the expedition. An account was also 
published of Drake's voyage of 1572, having been 
collated by the Rev. P. NichoUs from the narrative of 
men who sailed with him. 

Hawkins drew out a scheme, and saw to the per- 



THE DAINTY. 257 

fection of all the preparations. It was in connection 
with this work that the opinion of Sir Thomas Gorges, 
already quoted, was given : " Sir John Hawkins is an ex- 
cellent man in these things: he sees all things done 
orderly." Part of the cost of the expedition was borne 
by private adventurers — mostly by Drake and Hawkins 
themselves — and part by the State. Sir John was the 
chief contributor : his share of the expenses amounted 
to i^ 1 8,662, and Drake's to ;^ 12,842. The royal ships 
engaged were the Garland, De-fiance,Bonaventure, Hope, 
Foresight, and Adventure. There were twenty-one 
other vessels, and the total force at the command of 
Drake and Hawkins, who were in joint commission, was 
2,500 men and boys. While they were waiting at 
Plymouth for the word to start, a diversion was created 
by the arrival of four Spanish galleys off the Cornish 
coast to the west of Penzance, where they landed 
soldiers and did some damage. An express was sent 
to Hawkins and Drake for assistance. Finally, they 
got away on August 28th, 1595. 

Sir John had made his will in the previous year, 
and now added a codicil, written in special view of the 
fate of his son Richard, whom he was going to seek. 
It set forth that in the original document he had ap- 
pointed his wife and his son as executors, but now, 
"forasmuch as the said Richard Hawkins is supposed 
to be taken and detained prisoner in the Indies," he 
proposed, if Richard did not return to England within 



258 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

three years from December 20th, 1595, the widow 
should be sole executrix, and at least j^3,ooo should 
be devoted to the ransom of his son. 

It was patent that a project so great, and adver- 
tised so extensively in England, must be well known to 
the King of Spain. As a matter of fact, he was in- 
formed of it months before the fleet's departure, and 
made his arrangements accordingly. He sent news 
to every part of his dominions likely to be affected, and 
in order to gain further time, his agents raised the report 
that another Armada was being got ready to invade 
England. The ruse was so far successful that the fleet 
was kept hanging about Plymouth long after Hawkins 
had intended to be off. Before they left England, the 
two Admirals had information that a wealthy galleon 
had been separated from the Plate fleet, and the Queen 
was anxious that they should attempt to capture it. 
In this circumstance lay the germ of failure. Hawkins 
desired to devote the strength of the fleet to the per- 
formance of the Queen's wish, and to proceed at once in 
search of the galleon in question, which, owing to the 
loss of a mast, had been obHged to return to Puerto 
Rico. Drake was of another opinion. He and Haw- 
kins were of equal authority ; the dispute which arose 
was an instance of the evils of dual control. Hawkins 
allowed himself to be overborne by the weight of 
Drake's opinion, since he was backed by Sir Thomas 
Baskerville, who commanded tlie military side of the 



THE DAINTY. 259 

expedition. Thus valuable time was lost in a fruitless 
invasion of the Canaries, and in refitting at Dominica. 
This was all Philip wanted — time. He was able to com- 
plete his arrangements for strengthening the defences 
of Nombre de Dios and Panama, upon which, it was 
known, an attack was meditated ; and, with regard to 
the rich galleon at Porto Rico, he sent across five big 
warships to defend her. 

The old Sea Dog, now sixty-three, and grown grizzled 
in the service of Elizabeth's Navy, was not, this August, 
the vigorous and buoyant man who had sailed from 
Plymouth on his last thrilling voyage to the West Indies 
twenty years before. He had won much glory. He 
had done much good work. Fortune had, to a certain 
extent, smiled upon his worldly estate. But he had 
suffered severely from the pains of a thankless office ; 
family uprootings had shaken him, and the anxiety he 
felt about the fate of his son made him greyer, deepened 
the furrows on his dark face. It was with some 
sorrowful apprehension of a long journey into the un- 
known that, on Thursday, the 28th of August, he took 
leave of his daughter-in-law. Mistress Judith, and her 
child, promising to do what, in his paternal solicitude, he 
could to restore husband and father to them. 

The fine fleet worked out of harbour that afternoon, 
and anchored for the night in Cawsand Bay. Next day 
they bade farewell to the Devonshire coast and set 
their course south-west. The cliffs about Plymouth 



26o A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Sound sank down into the sea, and the conical peak of 
Rame vanished also. The Dartmoor hills followed 
them. Neither Hawkins nor Drake was ever to see 
those familiar landmarks again. Within a few months 
both were resting their last rest far below the gleaming 
surface of the Caribbean Sea. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE BITTER END. 

A Bad Start — An Abortive Attempt upon Grand Canary — Drake's 
Mistake — The Francis captured — The Spaniards prepared — 
Illness of Hawkins — His Death within Sight of San Juan — 
Drake's Grief — San Juan taken by Storm — Other Captures — Dis- 
appointment and Disaster — Drake's Death — Richard Hawkins's 
Long Imprisonment — His Release and Later Career. 

As though to warn them of the irretrievable disasters 

which this voyage was to bring, they began to meet 

with misfortune as soon as they started. Baskerville's 

ship, the Hope, ran up on the Eddystone Reef as they 

worked out into the Channel, but was got off without 

serious damage. They stood down to Finisterre, but 

did nothing on the Spanish coast, and for the first 

month were lacking adventure. They took two small 

Flemish fly-boats on the 8th of September, extracted 

what information they could from them, and let them 

go. 

By this time Drake's Canary Island scheme had 

been agreed upon, Hawkins reluctantly consenting 

against his better judgment ; and they rose the islands 

on the 26th. On the 27th they anchored off Grand 

261 



262 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

Canary, about three miles from the fort. This was 
well-known ground to Hawkins ; the traders of the 
Canaries were old friends of his ; it was improbable 
that he had any enthusiasm for the proceedings, and he 
had at the back of his mind the conviction that they 
were wasting time and jeopardising the main object of 
their voyage. He was eager to be off to the Western 
Ocean. However, Drake took the responsibility and 
the direction of these operations. His plan was to 
land some fourteen hundred men on the sandy beach 
between the fort and the town, and he began, as soon 
as the anchors were down, to make preparations to that 
end. But he found that the news of his coming had 
preceded him ; the Spaniards were apprehensive of 
trouble, and had made ready to meet him and to con- 
test the invasion with all their available strength. They 
hurriedly threw up earthworks on the land behind the 
beach — which was the only practicable landing-place — 
and dug trenches in which their arquebussiers were 
posted. Altogether, they displayed a force of about 
nine hundred, horse and foot. 

The English sent several of their smaller ships in 
within musket-shot of the shore to cover the landing. 
The vessels engaged in this service were the Solomon, 
the Bonaventure, the Elizabeth, the Constance, the 
Phoenix, the Ivell, the Littlejohn, the Delight, the 
Pegasus, the Exchange, the Francis, a caravel, and two 
small ketches. With the force thus represented, and 



THE BITTER END. 262, 

Drake's military skill and determination to aid it, there 
is no doubt that the landing could have been effected 
if the circumstances had been favourable, and the 
Spanish horse and foot would have been as impotent 
as the Treasurer's little army at Rio de la Hacha which 
Hawkins had dispersed so easily on a similar occasion 
many years before. But the circumstances were not 
favourable. Never an Englishman set foot on shore. 
The beach was a very hot place with the trenches 
behind it. Drake's pikemen might have cleared them 
if they could have landed without losing half their 
number. The difficulty was in landing. The sea beat 
furiously on the beach ; it would have required very 
delicate negotiation even if there had been no opposi- 
tion ; as it was, there was no chance. Reluctant to 
give in, Drake went inshore himself in his barge to 
examine the situation. At once he decided against the 
attempt and ordered the ships out of range ; it would 
have been folly to persist. He was rarely beaten, but 
he was not so foolish as not to know when he was 
beaten. 

The whole fleet then stood away to the west end of 
the island, where the ships watered. They encountered 
great hostility, even in this remote district. Captain 
Grimston ventured to ascend a hill, near which the ships 
lay, in the company of several officers and men, and was 
attacked by herdsmen. Grimston and three or four of 
his men were killed in a curious fight, in which the 



264 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

islanders set their dogs upon the English and assailed 
them with staves. All the rest were wounded, and the 
surgeon of the Solomon was taken prisoner. It was 
alleged against him that under pressure from the 
Spaniards he disclosed the plans of Hawkins and 
Drake, and that the Governor of the Canaries sent a 
caravel off at once to the West Indies to warn the 
authorities of the ports which the privateers intended 
to visit. But, as Captain Savile, who tells the story of 
the voyage, remarks, there was no need for this. Such 
a fuss had been made in England about the expedition 
that Philip had been able to advise his deputies in the 
far West three weeks before the squadron sailed from 
Plymouth. A Flemish merchant, also, who had been 
in London and seen something of the great prepara- 
tions for the equipment of Nestor and Neptune, had 
carried the news to the West Indies far in advance of 
the ships themselves. 

Time had thus been wasted. It would have been 
far better if Drake had consented to adopt John 
Hawkins's plan. They sailed from the Canaries on the 
28th, a Sunday, bidding farewell to the inhospitable 
islands late at night, and directing their course to the 
west, with sorrowful hearts for the fruitless loss of their 
comrades, and some misgivings about their success. 
They were about a month crossing the Atlantic. As 
usual, they fetched the Windward Islands first, sighting 
Martinique on the 27th of October. The weather was 



I 



THE BITTER END. 265 

very stormy, and on the night of the 26th, Drake, with 
five or six ships, was separated from the rest of the 
fleet, and stood for Dominica. Owing to the violence of 
the gale, he altered his course still further, and, while 
Hawkins was going round the south of Dominica, went 
north to the little isle of Marie Galante. He anchored 
on the 28th on the north-east side of the island, and 
went ashore in his barge, meeting with a canoeful of 
Caribs from Dominica, with whom he bartered " a yellow 
waistcoat of flannel and a handkerchief " for such fruits 
as they had. On the 29th he weighed to meet Haw 
kins, sailing among the islets of Todos Santos (now 
the lies des Saintes) and anchored off the south-east 
coast of Guadeloupe, where Hawkins joined him with 
all his ships but one. 

That one had a tragic fate ; and its tragedy had 
an important bearing on the still greater tragedy that 
was to follow. On the 30th, the Francis, a little vessel 
of thirty-five tons, being the rearmost of Hawkins's 
squadron, fell among five of the Spanish frigates sent 
by King Philip to protect the treasure at Puerto Rico. 
It was a hapless encounter. The little English ship 
might possibly have shown the Spaniards clean heels, 
and have got away to join the rest of the fleet, but for 
a misunderstanding. She mistook them for her con- 
sorts, and cordially closed up to them, till, discovering 
that they were enemies, she found it too late to save 
herself. She put up a fight, but was simply over- 



266 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

whelmed by numbers and metal. Only one English 
vessel was in sight, impotent to help, a caravel ahead 
of her which witnessed the battle and the disaster. The 
Francis was quickly silenced and captured, and most 
of her crew were taken on board the Spanish ships as 
prisoners of war and transported to Puerto Rico. 
Among them was John Austin, of whom we hear later. 
It is related that when the Francis was abandoned to 
the mercy of the wind and sea, there were left in her 
three or four sick and wounded men — an act of in- 
humanity said to have been confessed by Spaniards 
whom the English afterwards took at Puerto Rico. 

This loss was not a great thing, but it affected 
Hawkins very deeply. The blow to his prestige seemed 
hard for him to bear ; further, the incident seemed to 
foreshadow the failure to which the whole enterprise 
was doomed. The presence of these numerous Spanish 
warships in the neighbourhood, alert and aggressive, 
was the first definite intimation they had that their 
arrival and their plans were known to the colonial 
authorities. They had reckoned upon surprising San 
Juan de Puerto Rico, but all hope of anything like a 
surprise was now out of the question. They would have 
to attack a stronghold fortified and prepared to meet 
them. The old admiral knew that he was right when 
he advised that, on leaving England, they should make 
for the West Indies direct and assail at once the 
treasure which they hoped to make their prey. He had 



THE BITTER END. 2(^7 

given way to Drake, and it seemed to him that their 
misfortune was the immediate result. It is clear that 
the misunderstanding between these two was a sore 
trial to both of them. Hawkins began to show the 
effects of the disappointment at once ; his men noticed 
that he was low-spirited and weak from the day when 
the dire news of the Francis arrived. 

The fleet remained some days off Guadeloupe, 
riding close to the shore. They careened and cleaned 
some of the ships, foul after their two months' voyage ; 
they sent their soldiers ashore to stretch their limbs 
and get military exercise ; they put their pinnaces 
together They unloaded the Richard, a victualler, 
distributed her cargo throughout the fleet, dismantled 
her, and sent her to the bottom. They were then ready 
to depart. Reaching out from the shelter of Guade- 
loupe with a cloud of sail — the royal ships leading, and 
the privateers following, the newly equipped pinnaces 
scouting on the wings — they looked a formidable force 
as they reached away north-west, sailing upon the inner 
side of the Leeward Islands. By the 8th of November 
they were within measurable distance of their objective, 
Puerto Rico. 

Hawkins had been getting worse, and was by this 
time very ill indeed. He kept his bed on board the 
Garland while they rode at anchor among the Virgin 
Islands, the men fishing with hook and line to vary 
their rations, or fowling on shore. On the 12th, they 



268 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

emerged to the north of the islands, and wore round to 
the west for Puerto Rico. Passing Culebra in the after- 
noon, they sighted Cape San Juan before nightfall. 
There, " at the easternmost end of St. John, . , . 
Sir John Hawkins departed this life." 

So, simply, is the great sailor's taking off described. 
Thus, within call of the guns of San Juan, came the end 
of the long career. 

He had won his first fame in those latitudes thirty- 
two years before. Hispaniola, the scene of his first 
adventure, was a few leagues to the west of the spot 
where, that November evening, he closed his eyes upon 
the ships and the sea. Sad as it was, there was some- 
thing fitting in the circumstance of his death. To have 
lived longer would have been but to witness the 
ghastliest failure that had ever attended an English 
armada in the seas to which he had shown the way. 
He was sixty-three ; he had lived an arduous life, full 
of dangerous adventure, hard fighting, and hard work. 
Years had begun to tell upon him, and he was suffering 
from the intolerable strain of his official labours before 
he left England. He was staggered by the news about 
his son. The voyage was a vexation and a disaster 
from the first ; he was deeply troubled about the dis- 
agreement with his colleague Drake. The accumula- 
tion of misfortunes was more than his worn and wearied 
body and his troubled mind could withstand. The loss 
of the Francis was the last touch of adversity needed 



THE BITTER END. 269 

to weigh down the mortal balance. Which grief of all 
killed John Hawkins it is useless to inquire ; as Prince 
observes, " When the same heart hath two mortal 
wounds given it together, it is hard to say which of 
them killeth." 

The officers and men of the fleet were cast into 
black sorrow by the death of Hawkins, and Drake most 
of all. His old kinsman had been his mentor first and 
his admirer after — for the pupil had exceeded even the 
fame of the master, and Hawkins never grudged the 
honours that Drake won. Recall his words to Bolland, 
when he could not join a proposed expedition himself, 
that adventurers could not be lacking for any enter- 
prise in which Drake was concerned. Between two 
such men there must have been, in spite of all differences 
of opinion, a high and mutual respect and affection. 

The old Sea Dog was committed to the sea within 
sound of the Spanish guns, with all the traditional 
honours, with all the solemnity of a mariner's funeral. 
Barnfield wrote in his epitaph: 

" The waters were his winding-sheet, 
The sea was made his tomb ; 
Yet for his fame the ocean-sea 
Was not sufficient room." 

The story of the fateful adventure may be com- 
pleted in a few words. Within less than three months 
Drake had followed his old friend upon his last long 



2/0 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

voyage. Upon the death of Hawkins, Sir Thomas 
Baskerville took his place in the Garland, and the 
same evening the fleet anchored off San Juan. Drake 
showed too great a contempt for the enemy. He lay 
within reach of the guns on shore, and, as he was at 
supper aboard his flagship, they opened fire upon the 
fleet. Two shots struck the ship — the first of which 
entered the great cabin, killed Sir Nicholas Clifford, 
mortally wounded Brute Browne and others, and knocked 
over the stool on which Drake himself was sitting. 
They had to haul off till morning, when they found 
that the Spaniards had sunk a ship at the entrance to 
the harbour, to prevent the ingress of the English 
fleet. Then Drake decided on a landing, and bade good- 
bye to Browne, who was at the point of death. " Ah, 
dear Brute," said he, " I could grieve for thee, but now 
is no time to let down my spirits." Drake carried San 
Juan by storm, with great loss to the Spaniards, but with 
little gain to himself, for the treasure had been taken 
away. The Spaniards had clccired the town of women 
and children and had everything ready for a vigorous 
defence. 

Seeing that there was nothing to be done by remain- 
ing there, after a few days the admiral weighed for 
the Spanish Main. He took La Hacha and other 
places, but the results were still disappointing, and 
Drake began to suffer acutely from the sense of melan- 
choly failure. He had never been his own man sincf 



THE BITTER END. 271 

he lost Hawkins. At Nombre de Dios they obtained 
some treasure. An expedition across the Isthmus, with 
Panama as its goal, led by Baskerville, was a dismal 
breakdown, and the English suffered great loss during 
the desultory fighting among the hills. After struggling 
half-way across they came back distressed, beaten, deci- 
mated. This was the blow that completed Drake's 
misery. He immediately fell ill of a fever, hngered three 
weeks, and died while the fleet was passing between 
Porto Bello and Escudo, on the 28th of January, 1596. 
" H^ used some speeches at, or a Httle before, his death, 
rising and apparelling himself; but, being brought to 
bed again, within one hour he died." They buried him 
at sea. 

Baskerville, who now took charge of the fleet, had 
some fighting with the Spaniards before he got clear of 
the Indies, and the ships struggled home to Plymouth 
about the beginning of May. A Spanish account of the 
expedition was written by the Admiral, Don Bernaldino 
Delgadillo de Avelleneda, in which it was stated that 
"Francisco Draque murio en Nombre de Dios, de pena 
de aver perdido tantos baxeles y genie." Captain 
Savile, with Baskerville's approval, answered this in a 
long manifesto, denying that the losses inflicted upon 
him by the Spaniards had anything to do with the death 
of Drake. Baskerville, indeed, challenged Avelleneda 
to a duel "with whatsoever arms he shall make choice 
of " if he dared to reassert his slanders. There was a 



2/2 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

furious battle of words. The English were justly in- 
dignant about some of the Spanish Admiral's boasts 
as to the results of their encounters with him ; 
but, so far as Drake was concerned, there could be no 
doubt that the disappointments of the voyage hastened 
his death, as they had quickened the end of Hawkins. 
In fact, the whole story was regarded in England as 
calamitous, and its chief calamity was the loss of Eng- 
land's two greatest sailors. 

Both Hawkins and Drake were deeply mourned by 
the whole nation when the news arrived. It was not 
until the end of March that a war-stained sailor came 
home to Plymouth who was able to report the death of 
Sir John. This was the John Austin already mentioned. 
He had been on board the Francis when she was taken 
by the Spaniards, and carried into San Juan de Puerto 
Rico. During the attack on that town, he was informed, 
Hawkins had been killed. The rumour held good till 
the fact became known a month later, when Cecil 
heard from Plymouth that both the admirals were dead, 
and received a description of the manner of their 
passing. 

We left Richard Hawkins, whose woes were the in- 
spiration of his father's last voyage, in the hands of the 
Spaniards at Lima. A captive when the old man set 
out from Plymouth, Richard remained interned till 
nearly two years after his father's death. Ere the news 
had reached Europe, Philip, unknowing the fate of the 



THE BITTER END. 273 

two adventurers he most dreaded, was writing to the 
Marquis of Canete, Viceroy of Peru, about the treat- 
ment of the son of " Achines de PHmua." His letter is 
dated December 17th, 1595: 

"I have felt much satisfaction on receiving the news of 
the success which De Castro obtained over the English 
General Ricardo, who entered that sea by the Strait of 
Magellan ... As regards the punishment of the general and 
others who were captured in the said ship, you inform me that 
they have been claimed by the Inquisition, but that as you 
had no instructions from me as to their disposal, you have 
put off compliance with the requisition of the Holy Office, 
and the delivery of the said general to the auto. You under- 
stand that he is a person of quality. In this matter I desire 
that justice may be done conformably to the quality of the 
persons." 

If Canete had informed the King of the circum- 
stances in which Richard Hawkins was taken, this 
was a most disingenuous letter. The English Admiral 
had surrendered only on condition that the lives of 
himself and his men should be spared and that they 
should be restored to England at the earliest possible 
moment. The sequel was almost a worse treachery 
than that which his father had suffered at San Juan de 
Ulloa. Spanish promises, once more, proved lying 
deceits. Until the arrival of the king's letter, there was 
danger of the Inquisition ; indeed, one of Richard Haw- 
kins's companions was sent by the Holy Office to the 
galleys at Nombre Dios, where he died. The In- 
quisition, which had burnt Robert Barret at Seville 



2/4 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

twenty years before, had been the terror of John Haw- 
kins's soul while he irked under the delays that attended 
his setting forth from Plymouth on the voyage of ven- 
geance ; it was what Dame Judith at home feared most 
poignantly. As a matter of fact, Richard escaped the 
toils of the holy butchers by means of Philip's favour, 
such as it was, and by the admiration which his own 
valour and damitless spirit aroused in the minds of his 
gaolers. Canete treated him with signal kindness ; the 
man who had made such a tremendous fight against 
odds was the Hon of the hour at Lima, and was allotted 
a fine house for his residence. He had been claimed 
by the Inquisition, it was true, and taken for a brief time 
to the " Holy House " ; but these attentions ceased 
upon the arrival of the king's letter. 

After two years he was sent into Spain, and still 
detained a prisoner, notwithstanding de Castro's solemn 
promise. De Castro himself protested as loudly as any- 
body, but his protests had no power to unbar the gates 
of the Castle of Seville. Richard's captivity lasted 
nearly ten years, and he was finally released through 
the good offices of the Count of Miranda, who said 
that, if a prisoner was detained when his liberty had 
been promised, no future agreement could be made be- 
cause faith in Spanish honour would be destroyed. 

Queen Elizabeth had treated John Hawkins 
scandalously enough. The heritage of neglect de- 
scended upon his son. He had a wife and child in 



THE BITTER END. 275 

England, and he was devoted to Dame Judith, remain- 
ing faithful to her against all the wiles of a Spanish 
senora who fell violently in love with him. He wrote 
from his prison in Spain imploring the Queen to secure 
his release, and reminding her of the services which for 
many years his father and himself had rendered to her 
and to the Enghsh Navy. Yet nothing serious was 
done. John Hawkins had left in his will ;^ 3,000 for the 
ransom of his son ; not until the latter had been almost a 
decade in prison and had reached middle age was the 
other ;£"9,ooo provided to make up the total of the price 
set upon him by Spain. Richard Hawkins came home 
in January, 1603, two months before the Queen died. 
He came to find his father dead, his inheritance dis- 
sipated, his wife ten years older, his child Judith, whom 
he had left an infant, a girl of eleven. He set himself 
the task of restoring the family fortunes, and he suc- 
ceeded. He was knighted by King James, to whom he 
apphed for the forcible repair of the wrongs done to him 
by the Spaniards. He was elected Member of Parlia- 
ment for Plymouth, and appointed Vice-Admiral of 
Devon ; he lived a long and useful hfe — and died a 
disappointed man, as his father had died. His death 
occurred in 1622, when he was engaged upon the busi- 
ness of an expedition against the Algerine pirates, and 
it was said that he was killed by vexation because of the 
failure of the king to provide efficiently for the needs 
of the case. He suffered from the pusillanimity of 



2/6 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

James precisely as his father had suffered from the 
avarice and callousness of Elizabeth. 

With the death of Hawkins and Drake in 1596, the 
most stirring chapter of the conflict between the English 
seamen and the power of Spain was closed. Other 
expeditions were fitted out — that of Essex to Cadiz, 
those of Sir Anthony Shirley and Wilham Parker of 
Plymouth to the West Indies, involving the sack of 
Campeachy and the capture of Porto Bello. But the 
follies of Philip II. had ruined the glory of Spain, and 
after his death in 1598 their deteriorating, demoralising 
influence was felt to the full. Spanish fleets had been 
beaten at sea, the great Armada had been annihilated, 
the reputation of the Spanish soldiery had been buried 
in the marshes of the Low Countries. Not much was 
remaining for the English to fight when Philip's weak 
successor concluded his peace with James I. English 
adventurers turned their attention to other quarters of 
the globe, and particularly to the East Indies, where 
John Hawkins's nephew, Wilham, son of his brother 
William, played a notable part in the foundation of our 
Oriental Empire. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

CHARACTERISTICS. 

Hawkins's Place in the National Movement — The Sea-power of Spain 
broken at his Death — A Great Administrator — His Seamanship 
— His Services to Geographical Discovery and Maritime Science 
Solid and Stolid — Solicitude for His Men — His Religion. 

The place in history of " the very wise, vigilant, and 
true-hearted man " who was committed to the deep off 
the coast of Puerto Rico can only be estimated properly 
in a view of the comparative state of England and Spain 
at the time of his entry into the world of action, and at 
his sad departure from it. Such a task is beyond the 
scope of this volume. It must suffice to say that he had 
no small share in the national movement that stirred all 
England so deeply in the latter half of the sixteenth 
century. In the first place, he estabhshed the import- 
ant principle of the freedom of the sea to the ships of 
all nations, denied by the Spaniards in their regulations 
for the exclusion of all but Spanish keels from the 
Gulf of Mexico. Next, he was one of the first and most 
influential of the English privateers who, in the illicit 
war with Spain, dared greatly for something more than 

gold and glory, demonstrated the pluck and skill of the 

277 



2/8 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

islanders, and with the pohcy of pin-pricks helped to 
erode the power of Philip, to expose the weaknesses that 
underlay its pride, and to explode its pretensions, — the 
claims that aroused Raleigh's scorn when he wrote : 
" They pretend title : as if the Kings of Castile were 
the natural heirs of the world ! " Again, in the long 
preparation for the vital conflict of 1588, he showed fine 
qualities of administrative statesmanship as well as in- 
genuity of invention and seamanlike foresight, and 
proved a good man at a time when his failure would 
have been disastrous for England. 

The Spanish banner flew in undisputed sovereignty 
over a great part of the world, and over all the New 
World, in 1563, when John Hawkins set out on his 
first voyage to the West Indies — when he " sailed over 
the ocean sea unto the Island of Hispaniola." That 
adventure was the first shock given to Spanish security 
in those latitudes. When Hawkins died in 1595, the 
dream of the subjugation of the Protestant heretics 
was over, sea supremacy had been transferred from 
Spain to England, and the Netherlands were soon to be 
freed from the yoke of Spain. Hawkins's ships and 
the ships of the men who were his compatriots and 
disciples had done this thing. Without sea supremacy 
the Reformation would never have been consummated, 
and Philip would inevitably have added the realm of 
England to the vast heritage left him by Charles V 

John Hawkins was a great administrator. It has 



CHARACTERISTICS. 279 

been shown that his naval policy foreshadowed much 
that has since been worked into the body of the 
English naval system. He was a great merchant — 
cool, calculating, successful. He was a considerable 
fighter, though he had a strange contempt for land 
soldiers. But he was greatest of all as a sailor. 

"John Hawkyns, Marynr," is the title that best be- 
comes him. His devotion to the profession of the sea, 
and his skill in it, became a proverb in his own time. 
Blue water was his native element. It called him away 
from the creeks of Plymouth, away from the Channel 
and its ports, and he obeyed the call, following it into 
oceans hitherto unknown to English eyes. He lived on 
the sea from his boyhood to the time when national 
duty beckoned him to the irksome drudgery of the 
desk ; at the end the sea called him back, and he went 
to it to return no more. He knew his ships as he 
knew his child. He knew every planK, every stick, 
every spar, every cord, from truck to keelson. He 
loved his ships as he loved his only son. He was one 
of the most highly skilled navigators of an age when 
deeds almost miraculous were done with ships little 
better than cock-boats, when tiny caravels sailed the 
ocean and pinnaces braved the fiiricanos of the Carib- 
bean Sea. He sailed thousands of leagues in Httle 
craft like the Solomon, and big ships like the Jesus of 
Luhek, the Victory, and the Garland, and sailed them 
equally well. He pushed tlieir noses through waters 



28o A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

strange and distant, measuring currents and taking 
soundings as he went; he brought them masterly 
through the wildest weather, fought calms and thirst 
in the Sargasso Sea, and storms in the Western Ocean, 
weathered the dread nortes in the Gulf, and, short- 
handed, with exhausted crews, and ships ill-found, 
coasted the American continent, pierced the fogs of 
the banks of Newfoundland, and won his way to Eng- 
land again. The nightmare struggle in a morass of 
figures at the Treasurer's office tortured him into sighs ; 
but on his own quarter-deck he was ever strong, self- 
reliant, undisturbed, captain of his soul. This was the 
man who was trusted by his officers and idolised by his 
mariners ; he was never at a loss for an expedient in 
any situation, however difficult. As John Davis 
said* : 

" The first Englishman that gave any attempt on the coasts 
of West India, being part of America, was Sir John 
Hawkins, knight, who there and in that attempt, as 
in many other sithens, did and hath proved himself 
to be a man of excellent capacity, great government, 
and perfect resolution. For before he attempted the same it 
was a matter doubtful, and reported the extremest limit of 
danger, to sail upon those coasts. So that it was generally in 
dread among us, such is the slowness of our nation, for the 
most part of us rather joy at home like epicures to sit and 
carp at other men's hazards, ourselves not daring to give an 
attempt. I mean such as are at leisure to seek the good of 
their country, not being any ways employed as painful 

* In "The World's Hydrographical Description." 



CHARACTERISTICS. 281 

members of a common-weal, then either to further or give 
due commendation to the deservers : how, then, may Sir 
Hawkins be esteemed, who, being a man of good account in 
his country, of wealth and great employment, did, notwith- 
standing, for the good of his country, to procure trade, give 
that notable and resolute attempt." 

This was John Davis, of Sandridge, near Dart- 
mouth, a contemporary of Hawkins, who knew him well, 
and was highly qualified to speak of Hawkins's services 
to geographical discovery and the maritime sciences. 
The Hydrographical Description, "whereby it appears 
that there is a short and speedy passage into the South 
Seas, to China, etc., by Northerly Navigation," was 
published in the year of Hawkins's death ; it was in 
sequel to the accounts of his voyages in search of the 
North-West passage written by Davis nine years before. 
No doubt can exist that his opinion of Hawkins's merits 
was shared by all men in his time, except those whose 
animosity had been inspired by the Treasurer's ruthless 
rooting out of jobbery in the departments under his 
control. 

John Hawkins had a great fund of resistance. He 
was both solid and stolid. He could not be made to 
comply with an opinion unless he had been fully per- 
suaded of its justice and wisdom. He was slow in form- 
ing his own view, but when it had been formed, after a 
long process of inward balancing of the pros and cons, 
he could not be moved from it. Thus, in consultation 
with others, he did not express himself readily, but 



282 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

when the words did come, they were plain, blunt, and 
decided ; if a question remained in doubt, and he could 
find no solution, he left it for things of which he had 
certainty. With the quality of resistance, he com- 
bined its complement, perfect endurance. He was firm, 
almost immovable ; no hardship could unnerve him. 
His memory of persons, events, and places was remark- 
able ; he obtained and exercised in this way the full 
benefits of his great experience. It was this fact that 
fed his notable faculty of instant choice of the best 
way out of a tight corner. Slow as he was to speak, he 
was quick to see and prompt to act in urgent 
cases. 

His shortness of speech gave him sometimes the 
appearance of boorishness ; he did not dissemble, he 
would not toady. But for his sailors, the men who did 
his work, his affection was almost unlimited, and did 
not lack verbal and practical expression. He preserved 
the strictest authority, but he never tyrannised, and he 
was always willing to sacrifice himself for his poor 
mariners. The solicitude he displayed for the men 
marooned on the coast of Mexico, after the affair of 
San Juan, was undiminished by the passage of time ; he 
never rested until he had exhausted every effort mortal 
man could make for their redemption. In many prac- 
tical ways he laboured to improve the lot of the English 
seamen, and in the Chatham Chest and in the Hospital 
he founded he left an enduring monument of his regard 



CHARACTERISTICS. 283 

for the race among which he had been bred and had 
spent his youth and prime. 

According to his lights, Hawkins was what is de- 
scribed as a God-fearing man. In practice he was a 
generous Christian — " merciful, apt to forgive, and 
faithful to his word," as Maynard said. He gave of 
his substance for charity during his life, and made 
bequests to the poor in his will. In creed, he was an 
enthusiastic Protestant. While he fought Philip, he was 
fighting the Inquisition ; his letters are animated by the 
spirit of hatred and defiance of that evil thing, of which 
English sailors knew so painfully the terrible power. 

Not so brilliant an adventurer as Drake, merely be- 
cause his activities and his opportunities were not the 
same ; not so great an explorer as Gilbert, or Frobisher, 
or Cavendish, or Davis, for the same reason ; he was, 
nevertheless, a true representative, as he was one of the 
pioneers, of the great school of English seamen whose 
bequest to the nation it is impossible to estimate in any 
material terms of value. 



NOTES. 

A.— THE FAMILY OF HAWKINS. 

"Hawkyns " was the spelling used by the family until more 
recent times. The name occurs in the annals of Plymouth 
as far back as 1480. But intimately as the Hawkinses were 
associated with the work of the seamen of the West and with 
the local life of Plymouth, they were not originally a West- 
country breed. They were, in the first place, the Haw- 
kingses of the village of Hawking in the Hundred of Folke- 
stone, so that when in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign 
John Hawkins was administering the Navy from Deptford, 
and instituting his charities in the County of Kent, he was 
working in the very region out of which his ancestors had come. 
In the reign of Henry II., Osbert de Hawking lived in Kent, 
and a descendant of his was Andrew Hawkings, of Nash Court, 
near Faversham, in the time of Edward III. Andrew came 
into possession of Nash Court by his marriage with the heiress, 
Joan de Nash. It is from this union that the Hawkinses of 
Devon are derived. A branch of the family had settled in 
Plymouth by the middle of the fifteenth century, probably. 
At any rate, in 1480 a John Hawkins was holding land from 
the Corporation of the town ; he died before 1490, and his 
heirs continued in possession of the property. Some members 
of the family migrated to Tavistock, the picturesque town, 
fifteen miles to the north, clustered round the Abbey, which 
was then in the full tide of its prosperity and influence. 
Tavistock has another association interesting for us to re- 
member : it was the birthplace of Francis Drake. 

284 



NOTES. 285 

The favourite Christian names in the Hawkins family were 
William and John. A John Hawkins who had gone to Tavistock 
married Joan, daughter of William Amadas, of Launceston. 
He returned to Plymouth towards the end of the fifteenth 
century, and it is believed that his son William was born there 
soon after. That son was the first of the three great genera- 
tions of seamen, and we are now arrived at something like 
certitude in the matter of dates. 

In the year 15 13, a William Hawkyns was master of the 
Great Galley. So far as can be ascertained, the only seaman 
of repute owning that name was William Hawkins, of Ply- 
mouth, and it is probable that he and the master of the royal 
ship were the same person. The Great Galley stood second in 
the list of the men-of-war in King Henry's Navy in the 13th 
year of his reign, as we find from the details preserved in the 
Pepys Collection, at Magdalen College, Cambridge. The 
royal fleet then consisted of sixteen vessels, of which two were 
rowing barges. The largest of the ships was the Henry 
Grace de Dieu, stated in the Pepys papers to have been of 
1,500 tons burthen, but more probably having a tonnage 
of about 1,000. The Great Galley measured 800 tons, and 
there was one other ship of the same size, the Sovereign. 
Thus early, more than a century before the death of Richard 
Hawkins, the Compleat Seaman, in 1622, commenced the 
connection of the family with the naval service. 

B.— AUTHORITIES. 

There are few family records of the Hawkinses until we 
arrive at the work of Sir John's son, Richard. John Hawkins's 
life is written in action, and its activities are part of the sub- 
structure of British naval history. Something has been done 
towards the recognition of his part in the stirring drama of 
the sixteenth century. There are Froude's vividly coloured 
pictures of the half-national, half-private campaign of the 
West-country seamen against the naval power of Spain during 
the years when the family of Hawkins was at its apogee. A 



286 A SEA DOG OF DEVON. 

valuable basis for the study of Hawkins's life and character 
as a sea-adventurer, as a naval commanderj and as a states- 
man, has been provided by my friend the late Mr. R. N. 
Worth, of Plymouth, whose contributions to the fruits of 
historical research have perhaps only been appraised at their 
true merit by a few persons in the West of England who 
recognised the immense ability which he displayed as a his- 
torian, and regretted that his talents should be confined so 
largely to material of a purely local nature, and that his 
reputation did not assume the national proportions it might 
have reached under other circumstances. An admirable 
volume of records of the Hawkins family, by Miss Mary W. S. 
Hawkins, was printed by private subscription in 1888 ; this 
collated a large number of papers relating to Sir John, but 
it did not attempt a study of the historical significance of the 
Admiral's life, and was inevitably rather of local and personal 
than of wider interest. 

The author acknowledges with much gratitude the cour- 
teous assistance of Miss Hawkins, who has lent the portrait 
from which the frontispiece of the present volume has been 
produced. 

C— HAWKINS AND THE ADMIRALTY. 

The Lansdowne MSS. at the British Museum include a 
curious document (date 1587) written by a person employed by 
Sir William Winter to spy on Hawkins at Deptford. The ac- 
cusations are of jieculation and misappropriation in the dock- 
yard, but the evidence is feeble, and the bias is manifest. These 
"artycles of discovery of the unjust mynde and deceiptfull 
dealings of Mr. John Hawkins " had so much effect upon the 
Queen and Government that Hawkins remained in charge of 
the nation's naval affairs, and the next year was Vice-Admiral 
of the Fleet against the Armada. 









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